Left For Dead
by SASundance
Summary: What happened after the bomb blast when Tony walked away from Gibbs at BFF and was homeless? This tag contains some dark, angst-filled hurt, though not much comfort. How does Tony reconcile being treated as a joke by his team/family and how do internal dialogues we develop in childhood, influence our behaviour as adults?
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I don't ownn the NCIS characters but the LOLs Lil, Carla and Rae are all mine. Alas I am not benefiting financially from this story, it is purely for entertainment purposes.

Rating: T mainly to be safe for some bad language.

This story isn't beta'ed so please excuse my less than perfect punctuation.

Summary: What happened after the bomb blast when Tony walked away from Gibbs at the scene and was homeless? While watching the Left for Dead episode recently, I was taken by the meanness displayed by the team about Tony being homeless for a month and well... it fired my imagination and inspired this tag. It contains some dark, angst-filled hurt although not so much comfort. It is an examination of how Tony reconciles being treated as a doormat by those people he regards as his family and how the internal dialogues that we develop in childhood influence our adult behaviour. This story is eight chapters long. I hope you enjoy it :)

Left for Dead

Chapter 1

NCIS Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo stood outside the Bombe Fernendeckung Fabrik building, staring at the bombed out area morosely, as the snow continued to fall softly, gently in the silent, stillness of the night. It was in stark contrast the chaos that had ensued earlier when Suzzanne McNeill, the woman that had been found buried alive in Rock Creek Park, suddenly regained her memory just a short while ago in the lobby and decided to make her sleazebag boyfriend pay for ending their relationship and almost killing her. Yeah it didn't make much sense to him either; he could understand her wanting to make Stephan Brauer pay, he really could but blowing herself up as well as her married ex-bos,s seemed like taking the whole woman scorned thing, a tad too far.

Especially, when you consider that in extracting revenge on Brauer, his crazy girlfriend could easily have killed Gibbs, Cate and him too, simply because she wanted vengeance for being shafted by her sleaziod boyfriend. Then again, she was hardly the victim that Cate had built her up to be, so full of goodness and virtue either. Turned out, she had killed BFF's Chief of Security in the hotel when he tried to fob her off for Brauer with a redundancy package. Damned crazy chick!

Standing there immobile, he watched the EMTs ministering to a shattered Caitlyn Todd, who was clearly in shock after the events leading up to the explosion. He and Gibbs were much luckier, since Cate had been standing closer to the explosive device when it went off. He could tell that the physical damage was pretty superficial in nature but he doubted that the emotional consequences could be discounted as easily, though. Cate tended to wear her heart on her sleeve, at the best of times but she was so determined that her lame dog um Jane Doe was as innocent as the driven snow. This would hit her hard!

Their new little probie had broken Gibbs' Rule # 10 about getting too emotionally involved in the case. She had convinced herself that Suzzanne O'Neill was simply a victim of a heinous crime, which was correct up to a point since Stephan Brauer had tried to kill her. No,w with the realisation that she as a professional profiler had gotten it wrong, plainly etched across Cate's bruised and bloodied face, Tony's innate sense of empathy prodded at him to try to fix Cate's pain, grief and disillusionment. He hated seeing anyone suffer and honestly, law enforcement could break an agent's heart like no other profession, in his humble opinion.

Risking your life, serving and protecting the vulnerable, only to discover that some of those people didn't warrant your devotion, was a hard lesson for any of them to learn. While he hated seeing anyone suffering, Tony really, really hated seeing his friends in pain. Standing shoulder to shoulder with Gibbs, as they watched the EMTs deal with their newest team member, he felt utterly impotent as he watched the paramedic gently place a sterile dressing over the laceration on Cate's wrist. There had to be something that they could do to make her feel better.

He turned to Gibbs. "We've gotta do something Boss."

Gibbs turned to look at him with equal measures of cynicism and sadness. "Have you ever made a mistake, Tony?"

"According to you or me?" he asked. _'Cause by your definition Gibbs, I make them on a regular basis. _He didn't think it prudent to state that sentiment though._ Then there are all the mistakes I've made according to dear old Dad, but hey, we're standing here freezing our balls off, so not gonna go there, either.'_

Gibbs stared at him implacably. "You."

"Yeah." _Tony decided to keep it brief since Gibbs preferred brevity._

Gibbs question was deceptively gentle. "Anyone ever make you feel better?"

Tony felt his stomach clench. "No." _Of course for many of the so-called mistakes, the only person who could have made him feel better was the person who had berated him for being weak and stupid. The likelihood that He would ever try to make him feel better was less than a cute little piglet sprouting wings and flying around a moon made of cheese._

Feeling powerless, he turned and walked away, wanting to put some distance between himself and the crime scene. They wouldn't be permitted to process the scene tonight and quite possibly, Director Morrow would assign that task to another team since they were now considered to be survivors of a crime. He'd cadge a lift back to NCIS with one of the other agents or LEOs so he could collect his car and head off home. Right now he really just craved solitude.

As he headed off, Gibbs called out to him, "My doors unlocked."

Smirking, because he couldn't believe how dumb that was for anyone who worked in law enforcement. "I know," he replied softly, smiling at the incongruity of that information, without bothering to turn around.

Then it hit him. Damn it, he'd forgotten about his apartment and the boiler. Of course if it was going to happen, it would have to be in the middle of a DC winter. He really longed to collapse into his bed and forget that today ever happened.

At least the threat to blow up a Navy ship had been a false one, so that was something to be grateful for. The bombs that their bomb maker Suzanne McNeill made were all accounted for and her memories of planting explosives on Navy ships had been false It had really just been mock-ups at BFF that she was remembering in her amnesic state. And as for Stephan Brauer and Suzzanne, neither of them had been innocents; both had blood on their hands but he supposed that they still had friends and family who would mourn their deaths. For Tony though, it was the anguish that he could still picture in Cate's eyes, which filled him with inexorable rage.

Maybe Gibbs was right, there was nothing that he could do to make her feel better but that didn't stop him wondering just how much responsibility he should bear for her pain. If she hadn't been in such a hurry to give her bedroom to anyone but him, even a perfect stranger who may be part of a plot!to blow up a navy ship, for heavens sake, would she have become so emotionally attached to the mad bomber chick? Surely not! He recalled a college professor talking about the effects of propinquity on attraction and he suspected that physical closeness also worked for friendships too.

He very much doubted that she'd have bonded so quickly if she hadn't been joined to the hip with her new roomie, so really, indirectly he was responsible for her feeling so crappy. If Cate hadn't been desperate to have a legitimate reason to turn him down '_when_' he asked to stay with her, she wouldn't have bonded so quickly with her roomie. The irony was of course, that he would never have asked her if he could stay, not after being rebuffed by both Ducky and Gibbs, the two men that he regarded as role models. He couldn't help wondering, what it was about him that was so damned abhorrent that Cate would leap at inviting a murderer into her home; simply because she was alarmed at the prospect that he might ask her if he could crash at her place.

Probably the same thing that made Gibbs and Ducky refuse him a place to stay when he asked them too, he concluded sadly. Oh sure, Gibbs had just told him as he left the crime scene, that his door wasn't locked although that was surely because his boss had taken pity on him, after they were nearly killed tonight. Being blown up by a bomb, tended to affect one's judgement, understandably and it was easy to make hasty decisions based on emotions. He knew damned well that Gibbs would regret the offer as soon as Tony set foot in his personal castle; that was even supposing that he didn't already lament his moment of weakness, as soon he opened his mouth. He refused to hold him to an invitation extended under duress, though.

Gibbs had already made his real feelings clear earlier today. There was no way he would inflict himself on Gibbs although he appreciated his offer, since he obviously didn't really want Tony in his home. He expressed himself in unequivocally terms earlier on, twice actually and the former cop supposed after slapping him over the head at BFF earlier on when he'd cracked a joke which left the senior field agent's left ear ringing from the force of the blow, that Gibbs had good reasons for not wanting Tony in his home. Having to put up with him at work was enough of a challenge.

His father was right about him being a waste of space. And if he had ever needed further proof that he was an obnoxious excuse for a human being, it was their new team member feeling compelled to take that damned woman home. While Cate had only received minor injuries to recuperate from, he knew that the real damage was impossible to see but would endure. It was the emotional scars that really left their mark, as he knew full well.

It was time to take a good hard look at this version of Anthony DiNozzo that he had created when he came to D.C. and try to fix his many flaws. That way, maybe in future he wouldn't end up hurting those people he worked with and who had come to mean so much to him. It would probably be a good start, if he worked on not being such a whiny, needy person who expected other people to come to his aid all the time. After all, he was an adult and capable of taking care of himself, he'd been doing it most of his life.

So, why was he suddenly getting so soft? Expecting other people to fix his messes was juvenile and weak but then, as Senior had pointed out on more than a few occasions, when he was growing up, he was a weak, pitiful individual. It was time to grow up and stop hurting people who were way better than he was or ever could be.

What was the big deal if he was without heat or power for a month? He still had a roof over his head, after all, and homeless people didn't even have that. Tony remembered when he worked as a beat cop, finding vagrants and addicts who had frozen to death during blizzards and he felt disgusted that he was too weak to cope without heat or power for a month. God, his father had been right about him all along; he was weak and pathetic, it was time to get a grip. No wonder Gibbs was disgusted by him; he was a Marine, the toughest of the tough and they survived for months in combat without the fripperies. Of course he should be able to cope with a minor inconvenience for a few weeks; at least he could always grab a hot shower at work.

Maybe if he stopped being such a self-centred ass, maybe if he'd been a nicer person, maybe he could have prevented Cate from making such a painful, rookie error. And in keeping with his resolve to be a better person and senior field agent, he'd stop off at the office and make certain his report was perfect then he hit the shower. He really needed a piping hot shower to try and ease all the aches and pains that resulted from being in concussive explosion. Yeah Tony concluded wearily, being blown up really sucked.


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: I don't own the NCIS characters but the LOLs Lil, Carla and Rae are all mine. Alas I am not benefiting financially from this story, it is purely for entertainment purposes.

Rating: T mainly to be safe for some bad language.

This story isn't beta'ed so please excuse my less than perfect punctuation. Oh and for people not familiar with me, being an Aussie I use English spelling but try hard not to use English/Aussie idioms expressions except of course for dear old Ducky.

A/N Wow, first off thank-you for the response this tag has generated in only the first chapter. I am pretty overwhelmed and grateful for all the people who have the story on alert, have made it a favourite and left lots of kind reviews. I notice quite a few people that are new to my stories so I just wanted to explain a couple of things to readers. Due to technical issues and also download constrictions, I have been forced to give a collective rather than an individual than-you to all my reviewers in recent times, many of whom are incredibly loyal and review everything I upload. I do notice you guys and appreciate your kindness and am thrilled to bits to hear from new reviewers too. Positive reinforcement does work wonders for a writer. Second thing, is that I do know that I have several outstanding stories already started and I just wanted to reassure you that they are progressing. I have edits to do on one and will be uploading later today and the other is progressing well too. Both will be finished in the near future. I don't abandon stories because I always work to a story outline and because frankly, as a FF reader, nothing infuriates me more than to get involved in a story and then for it to be abandoned.

Finally, because this A/N is becoming longer than the chapter itself, in response to a reviewer who posed a valid question about why Tony didn't just got to a motel, I wanted to respond. It was also a question I asked myself while watching the episode. Just like I asked myself and I noticed that Ibinkeybella did too, what could Tony have done while staying at Gibbs house that was so bad that he would turn down a rare request from his 2IC for help? That was partly what prompted me to write the tag, as I tried to come up with an explanation to both those questions. One will be answered in chapter three and the other in chapter 4 and 7.

Left For Dead

Chapter 2

Gibbs was getting ready to head into the office and he took a last mouthful of his morning coffee, before rinsing the cup and leaving it to drain, inverted on the kitchen sink. Just as he picked up his car keys, ID, wallet and his cell phone, it rang. Knowing it would be work related at 0600 hours, he barked in his usual abrupt fashion, "Gibbs."

He was right. It was Supervisory Special Agent Chris Pacci whose team had been on call overnight and he was at the hospital with DiNozzo who was undergoing surgery for stab wounds. All Pacci would say was that Tony had been stabbed and it was serious. Leaping into the car he headed for the hospital at his usual breakneck speed while calling Cate, Ducky and Abby to tell them that he wouldn't be into work and neither would Tony.

Of course he wasn't surprised when they all insisted on coming down to the hospital to make sure their team-mate was alright. It made Gibbs feel proud of his team that they cared so much about each other. It was part of what made the MCRT so damn good.

He remembered how concerned Tony had been over Cate two weeks ago, after that mad bitch blew them all up and their probie realised that she'd been taken for a ride by someone who had turned out to be a murderer. As he pulled into the hospital car park, he realised that Tony had been unusually quiet since that case but then so had Cate, whose confidence had been shaken by her blunder. He'd just assumed that it was quiet because Cate was missing her usual piss and vinegar attitude and Tony was giving her space, like he'd advised. Now he wondered if he was withdrawn because of a more sinister explanation. Maybe something or someone was troubling him but surely if that was the case he would tell Gibbs, wouldn't he?

~ Left for Dead ~

Chris wasn't surprised to see Gibbs roll up to the hospital at least ten minutes before he expected him, in spite of the fact that he had to drive in from Alexandria, even if the traffic was lighter at that time of the morning. Anyone who knew anything about the diving habits of the leader of the MCRT, knew that Gibbs' normal driving speed rivaled that of a car travelling on a German Autobahn which unlike their freeways, didn't have a general speed limit. The difference being that Gibbs always drove everywhere as if he was on the Autobahn, regardless of the type of road or the driving conditions. Even still, he'd managed to arrive at the hospital sooner that Chris had expected. In typical Gibbs mode, he strode in, dispensing with any pleasantries, demanding a SitRep but was interrupted constantly as one by one, the rest of his people rolled in too.

Predictably enough, Ducky wanted to know everything about Tony's injuries and Chris was only able to tell them that Tony had numerous abdominal wounds and several blows to his face. The doctors' thought based upon tests, that he might have a perforated intestine and a lacerated liver. He'd been in surgery for approximately ninety minutes and everyone looked grave.

Gibbs glared at Pacci. Why wasn't I notified sooner, Chris? I'm his emergency contact person. More to the point, who signed the consent forms for treatment?"

Chris shrugged. "He did Gibbs, while he was still conscious. He told me not to call you until you were leaving for the office. Said he didn't want to be a bother and I'm quoting him."

Gibbs, Ducky, Abby and Cate all looked confused before Gibbs demanded to know exactly how DiNozzo had been wounded. Chris grimaced, trying to organise the facts into a cogent report, just the way Gibbs liked them, salient points all condensed into bullet form. Unemotional, just the facts but he was also struggling to keep his emotions in check. Special Agent Pacci had developed a soft spot for DiNozzo over the two and a half years that he'd know and worked with the young agent and his emotions were making it difficult for Chris to think rationally. He felt proud of the kid's courage and determination to protect individuals that he felt needed protecting and also anger because Tony was so darned stubborn and proud. If only he had taken up Chris' offer of a room at his place until his building was habitable again, he never would have been in the situation where he was stabbed and nearly died. As it was, he was going to face a long and difficult recovery, if he was lucky.

Taking a deep breath he began to report. "He was at the 24 hour coin operated laundry a few blocks from his building at 0230 when he heard someone screaming in the back alley. He ran out and found a man raping a young runaway, who was turning tricks. While he was arresting the dirtbag, a second guy came up behind him and stabbed him multiple times before kicking him in the head, and then they ran of togetherf. Tony did manage to get off a couple of shots and it looks like he winged at least one of them, going by the blood in the alley before he collapsed. The manager of the laundry called 911 and managed to stem the loss of blood til the EMTs arrived." He reported dispassionately.

"What the devil was he up to, out doing his laundry at 0230 in the morning, Chris?" Gibbs demanded shaken.

"Yeah and more's to the point, why was he doing it at a 24 hour laundry. Tony has a brand new washer drier in his apartment. That just sounds too hinky." Abby threw in her two cents worth, upset to hear the seriousness of the injuries.

Pacci rolled his eyes, wanting to strangle these dense people. "Well to answer both your questions, he's been working such long hours lately, as you know, so he hasn't had a chance to get to the laundry. He finally ran out of clean clothes and when he got home last night, he realised he didn't have anything to wear today. So he went out to do a load of laundry before he grabbed a few hours of sleep. And yeah Abby, you're right, he does have a washer drier in his apartment but he has no heat or power so he couldn't use them. Hasn't had any for over two weeks now and won't have any for another three weeks, at least."

Abby like the others, looked confused. "So where's he been staying, then? Has he been with you?"She stared at the trio who all shook their heads. "I just figured he was staying with one of you guys," she looked at the other,s who looked equally nonplussed.

Chris looked at the group, wondering how such so-called hotshot investigators could be so dumb. "He's been staying at his apartment."

"Why is the idiot staying in an apartment without heat or power in the middle of winter? I told him my door was always open. Damn him."

"I found him sleeping at the office the night of the BFF bombing but unfortunately so did the Assistant Director on night duty and he told him unless he was working an active case, to go home to sleep. I wanted him to come back to my plac with mee but he said he needed to stop being a weakling and expecting other people to clean up his messes. Said he always ended up hurting those people who were important to him. He went to try to sleep in his car, but security reported him to that asshole Assistant Director Kersh and he threatened him with a suspension if he didn't follow his direct order not to sleep on the premises, so then Tony went home."

Gibbs exploded, "Why didn't he come to mine? I told him to, before he left BFF."

"Tony told me. He said you didn't want him there when he asked you but after you all got blown up and nearly died, you took pity on him. You know as well as anyone Gibbs, how much he hates to be pitied since he thinks it means he's weak and apart from which, he's too busy blaming himself for Cate getting emotionally involved with the whack job McNeill. Said that if he wasn't such a terrible partner, that she wouldn't have felt so compelled to drag home a total stranger, just so her spare room was occupied if he asked could he stay. So the idiot feels like it's his fault that she is feeling so bad about being duped by a murderer." Chris took a breath and looked at the group.

Abby glared around at her friends. "Where on earth would Tony get a dumb idea like that from? I'd don't understand how such a brilliant investigator can be so dumb when it comes to himself. "She looked at Gibbs and Cate who were looking uncomfortable. "What? Where did he get that crazy idea from?"

Gibbs was looking rather awkward. "Gee Abby, maybe because Cate told him that was why she was bringing Jane Doe home with her, so she didn't have to refuse him when he asked."

Abby's normally alabaster complexion, a combination of naturally fair skin and a cosmetically enhanced cocktail of chemicals, coloured up like a switch had been hit. Two fiery spots of red appeared on her pale cheeks before launching herself at Cate, in a blinding rage.

"How could you be such a cow Cate, how could you hurt our Tony like that? Surely Little Miss Profiler, you've figured out by now that the DiNozzo swagger is just a camouflage for someone who is far too sensitive?" she bellowed at the shocked agent.

Fortunately, Ducky and Gibbs had seen the signs that Abby's quick temper was about to erupt and they moved together in a concerted move to restrain her, blocking her access to the hapless Cate Todd.

"Enough Abigail, this is not helping young Anthony, at all. In fact you may well get us thrown out of the hospital if you don't cease screaming like a banshee, my dear girl. Take some deep breaths and settle down, immediately," the medical examiner scolded.

When she had calmed down a little, Pacci regarded the Goth scientist gravely. "Perhaps you should examine your own behaviour too, Abby before throwing stones. You're not blameless either. It was all over the building that none of you would give him a place to stay and everyone was joking at his expense, but then again, what else is new?"

"Hey Chris, no fair. Tony only had to ask and I would have let him stay on my couch. You know so much, tell me why he didn't just ask me?"Abby protested.

Chris regarded her with more than a touch of scorn, that she could be so obtuse about someone she claimed to be such good friends with.

"Gosh Abby, maybe because he thought you'd turn him down like Ducky and Gibbs or rent your room out so you didn't have to say no and he didn't want to put you in that position. And anyway, you knew he didn't have anywhere to stay, so why didn't you simply offer him a bed? He wouldn't accept one from me but he just might have if you'd offered."

"Why didn't he just get a room somewhere? I bet if he spent less on clubbing and dating bimbos and wearing designer clothes, he could afford a motel room somewhere, like a normal person." Cate demanded nastily, feeling guilty and defensive about her actions, especially when she had really stuffed up badly.

Chris just glared at her. "Not my business, Agent Todd." The unspoken implication was that it wasn't hers, either.


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: I don't own the NCIS characters but the LOLs Lil, Carla and Rae are all mine. Alas I am not benefiting financially from this story, it is purely for entertainment purposes.

Rating: T mainly to be safe for some bad language.

This story isn't beta'ed so please excuse my less than perfect punctuation.

A/N Once again thank-you to everyone for your response. Thanks for all the alerts (unprecedented number for just 2 chapters) the faves and the reviews. Always nice to hear from newbies and I love my loyal reviewers who are always there whatever my fevered insomniac imagination dreams up. For the reviewer wondering about WTRNPSU it is progressing and I hope to have the last few chapters with you soon. Their is a sequel in the offing and takes place a year after the close of the story which is 75 percent written as well. It just didn't want to be written in a sequential manner I'm afraid. Meanwhile I hope you enjoy the LOLs

~ Left For Dead ~

Chapter 3

Gibbs sat in the waiting room with his team and Chris Pacci, everyone anxious to hear something about DiNozzo's condition. They had been here for nearly three hours now and after the confrontation between Pacci and the team; they'd all become lost in their own thoughts. If they were anything like his own, Gibbs figured they were guilt laden ones. God, he really was a bastard and because he was, Tony had ended up being seriously hurt at best. He wasn't even going to visit the at worst, scenario because he couldn't lose his senior field agent. It simply wasn't an option.

He'd really stuffed up, badly. He knew damned well that Tony was someone who was easily hurt and had great trouble trusting people. He would spend most of his time and energy pretending that he was fine, especially when he wasn't and had difficulty asking for and accepting help. So the fact he had asked his mentor if he could stay at his place had really been a huge breakthrough for the stubbornly independent, young agent. Then not only had he refused him point blank twice, Ducky had cut him off when he'd thrown out hints to the ME too. Cate hadn't even waited for him to drop a hint.

No wonder he wasn't game to even think about Abby as a potential port in a storm. Gibbs knew how badly DiNozzo dealt with rejection and being ignored and it bugged the crap out of him that Tony was so hypersensitive. Intuitively though, Gibbs knew that something bad had to have happened to his SFA for him to be so damned vulnerable and thin skinned. Unfortunately, DiNozzo was so good at protecting himself that he had perfected it to an art form that mostly hid his vulnerabilities from view.

And yet, he couldn't honestly claim that he wasn't aware of Tony's soft underbelly since he got a perverse kick out of yanking the kid's chain all the time. As good as his cocky, frat boy, bulletproof act was, anytime Gibbs managed to sneak one past DiNozzo and land a blow as evidenced by a grimace or a flicker of pain in those perpetually smiling eyes, it gave him a cheap thrill of triumph. Like he'd won some epic battle or something, instead of the reality that he'd successfully wounded someone he really should be protecting. Gibbs was going to have his work cut out to try and re-establish a degree of trust once again, limited as it had been.

If that wasn't enough to contend with, he'd never noticed that Tony was blaming himself for Cate's blunder with Suzanne McNeil. Damn it, he knew how much Tony needed to look after the people that he worked with. He might act like a selfish, self- absorbed jerk but the truth is that he'd take a bullet for a perfect stranger or in this case a young street kid. He was always the one to make sure people ate or talked when they were troubled and he was always trying to make others laugh or smile. He often escorted Abby out when she wanted to go clubbing in rough locales and he was her emergency taxi when she needed it too. It was Tony that soothed ruffled feathers when Gibbs was a bastard and he was the one that took care of the hysterical witnesses and victims, he seemed to have great empathy for the suffering of others.

Gibbs berated himself, he should have known that preventing Tony from trying to help Cate in the wake of the FUBAR bombing, even if it wasn't necessary or effective, he would turn that angst and anger inward instead and somehow find a way to lay the blame on himself. Someone had sure done a number on that kid for him to be so damned eager to believe that he was at fault whenever something went wrong. Gibbs really wanted to know who was responsible for DiNozzo not trusting people and being so damned eager to step up and take the blame all the time and it wasn't because he had some sort of perverted martyr complex.

He genuinely seemed to believe that he was at fault and Gibbs had been working since the day he'd dragged him back from Baltimore to work on his team, to discover why he was so quick to accept blame for things he had no responsibility for. Of course this fiasco had probably extinguished any of the credibility he'd been building up with him, and he doubted that Tony would be in any hurry to share any secrets with him or anyone else on the team. And frankly, he didn't blame him one bit. Why the Hell hadn't he checked up on him when he didn't turn up on his door-step the night of the bomb-blast? _Because you were relieved that he didn't show up and disturb the status quo!_

Another 45 minutes had passed and they were still waiting for news when a trio of little old ladies made their way into the waiting room. None of them appeared to be under seventy five if they were a day and they all looked like they spent their days baking cookies, knitting jerseys and doting on their grand kids. Ducky smiled at them, and Gibbs wondered if he'd identified them as a benign captive audience for some of his colourful and lengthy anecdotes or was his friendlinesssimply motivated by his need to heal spirits as well as bodies. Gibbs noticed that everyone was eavesdropping on their conversation as well, no doubt welcoming the diversion from their own uncomfortable thoughts

"How long before we hear something do you think, Carla?"

"I'm not sure Lil; they said the lad has been on the table for several hours already, so hopefully it won't be too much longer."

"The problem is they wouldn't tell us what his injuries were. Frankie said he was pretty badly hurt. Oh, I do hope he's going to be okay, I'll never forgive myself if anything happened to that boy."

"It wasn't your fault Rae, or ours either, although I know what you mean. Still, he told us his friends would see him right and let him doss down with them. I would have never allowed him to pay for us to stay in that fancy hotel suite; if I'd know he had nowhere to stay himself. You know how much that sweet young man likes looking after us all." Lil, the elderly lady with pin curls and soft round curves, patted the tall thin Rae comfortingly on her bony hand.

"Well I think it might be time we return the favour, ladies. Tony's going to need someone to look after him properly, when he comes home from the hospital." Carla stated determinedly, before hearing a loud gasp and turned to really look at the other occupants of the room. She seemed rather alarmed to see a tall young woman clad in Goth get-up and covered in tattoos, bearing down on her.

"Are you here for Tony DiNozzo too?" Abby asked in her low, gravelly voice.

Gibbs noticed that the tall, thin one they called Rae, discreetly crossed herself before answering, "Yes, we are…"

Before they had a chance to interrogate these women about how they knew Tony, a doctor dressed in bloodied scrubs appeared in the doorway, calling for family for Special Agent DiNozzo.

~Left For Dead~

Gibbs introduced himself, explaining he was Tony's boss and medical proxy and then presented Ducky as his personal physician, before indicating that the people with him were friends and colleagues of the federal agent.

The doctor held out his hand and exchanged a quick handshake with them all, as he introduced himself as Dr Rodriguez, Tony's surgeon before glancing at the three elderly ladies who were also clustered around.

"And you lovely ladies would be?" he asked politely.

"I'm his grandmother," they chorused in unison before looking at each other in confusion.

The doctor looked at them with a mixture of amusement and disbelief since Carla was Hispanic, Rae was African American and Lil was clearly of Anglo Saxon descent.

"Really ladies, because I'm having trouble seeing the family resemblance," the surgeon opined, drolly.

"He's bi-racial," Rae offered rather sternly in explanation.

"We're a very big blended family, young man," Lil smiled winsomely.

Everyone looked across at the third little old lady, curious as to what her response would be.

Carla who was a small wiry woman studied the middle aged surgeon, calculatedly. "Rodriguez, that wouldn't be Little Manuel would it; the son of Luis and Maria Rodriguez, whose son is a doctor? My goodness, what a small world, it is. I've known your parents for forty years or more, young Manny and I used to mind you sometimes when you were in diapers, young man. You sure have grown some, since then. And did you know that our Tony often runs errands for your parents when he's not working. We all love that boy, he'd give you the shirt off his own back, that one," she stated proudly. She looked to her cronies, who were all nodding in agreement.

The doctor had started to blush bright red as he saw the amusement on the faces of the federal agents and he looked at Gibbs helplessly, unsure how to respond to the trio of elderly 'grandmothers.' Gibbs shrugged and nodded, indicating it was okay to speak in front of them.

"Okay, well we've taken Tony down to the recovery ward where we are watching him carefully. I'm afraid his condition is listed as critical at the moment. Perhaps we should sit down," he indicated to the chairs and sank down gratefully. After four brutal hours operating, he was dead on his feet.

"Exactly what are his injuries, Doctor?" Ducky inquired anxiously.

"Well he presented in the ER with multiple stab wounds to the abdomen; five I believe. One penetrated his liver while several went into muscles but I'm afraid one perforated his jejunum and another nicked his colon. That complicated matters greatly and although we were at great pains to lavage um wash out his abdominal cavity, I am still very concerned about the risk of infections, especially septicaemia. Tell me Doctor Mallard, is Tony always so underweight or has he lost a significant amount of weight lately? Do you know if he has been ill recently?" the surgeon quizzed him closely.

Gibbs looked at Ducky who looked surprised by the questions and grave at the information about DiNozzo's injuries. Meanwhile, in the background, the Little Old Ladies were tutting, tsking and muttering about how they tried to tell Tony he was too skinny and needed to eat better and take proper care of himself. That he shouldn't run so much and work so hard.

Ducky, his brow furrowed answered slowly, "Well I examined him after he was caught in a bomb blast several weeks ago and he at his normal weight then. Although I advised him that he could stand to gain several pounds, he always has problems maintaining his weight. He was 179 pounds and I saw no evidence of him being ill that would explain the weight loss, Doctor."

"Well he's managed to drop down eleven pounds since then, Dr Mallard and going by the blood tests and his physical condition, he has essentially lost lean muscle mass. His electrolytes are all over the shop too. His blood work doesn't indicate any signs of inflammation or other issues to account for him losing a significant amount of weight and frankly it isn't going to stand him in good stead for his recovery, now. " He observed the worried expressions and was disappointed since he'd hoped that they could supply some answers to his questions.

"We need to identify what has caused such a rapid weight loss so we can try to address it. Has he complained of a loss of appetite lately or feeling unwell, does anyone know?" he explained.

Abby frowned, "I've noticed lately that he's been forgetting to eat, unless I nag him to death. He seemed to be preoccupied by something but he wouldn't talk about it."

Ducky looked at the surgeon. "And Anthony has always had an extremely high resting metabolism and burns calories far too easily. I'm afraid he has been without heat or power for the last couple of weeks, so he is probably burning up copious amounts of energy, just trying to stay warm. If he isn't being attentive about his diet, I'm afraid that the two factors combined, could probably explain why he has dropped such an alarming amount of weight over a two week period."

He looked at his colleagues, shamefaced at his failure to notice Tony was in trouble, while they too all shifted and squirmed under the irate glares of the fearsome LOLs who had proved that looks really were deceiving. The indomitable trio were regarding them all with undisguised disgust and anger and Gibbs felt as if they were likely to be spanked with a slipper momentarily for their transgressions.

Chris asked Rodriguez if Tony had head injuries from being kicked by the rapists.

The doctor nodded. "He has a moderate concussion that we need to keep a close eye on and Tony also has a severely bruised jaw that with make eating food difficult and painful for several weeks, at least. When we start him on food, he will be on mostly fluids and soft foods which are going to make it difficult to maintain weight, unfortunately."

He looked at Ducky seriously, "As you know Doctor, such rapid weight loss especially when the body catabolises protein stores, can have serious consequences for immune function, not to mention that it can effect vital organs like his heart, lungs, liver and kidneys. He's going to be staying in ICU longer than the average perforated gastrointestinal case, I'm afraid." Smiling at them all with a generic smile learnt as an intern, he told them he needed to return to check up on his patient.

Carla called to him, "Manny dear, when can we see Tony?"

Dr Rodriguez smiled briefly at the pleading faces, well the military looking guy with the silver grey hair wasn't begging, more like demanding but the surgeon was no push over. "Once he's been transferred to a bed in ICU but only family or next of kin." Seeing the glare from the silver haired agent, he hastened to add that that also included medical proxies. "Of course as his personal physician you will also be permitted to see him too, Dr Mallard."

Chris flashed a grin that would be worthy of DiNozzo. "Tony's lucky to have his Grannies here for him, isn't he?"

Rodriguez, heading out the door, snorted, realising he'd been backed into a corner by three little old ladies.


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: I don't own the NCIS characters but the LOLs Lil, Carla and Rae are all mine. Alas I am not benefiting financially from this story, it is purely for entertainment purposes.

Rating: T mainly to be safe for some bad language.

This story isn't beta'ed so please excuse my less than perfect punctuation.

A/N Once again thank-you to everyone for your response to the story. I continue to find lots of reviews and alerts in my inbox alerting me to new followers and people who have faved the story. Thank -you to all the reviews and I'm so happy that many of you liked the LOLs too. I love them but since they are my creation I might be a tad biased :D You haven't seen the last of Lil, Carla and Rae just yet either. Responding to a query that I forgot to last chapter, my bad. Chris knew about Tony's trouble because he was at the office when Tony returned there after the bomb blast. Since he was upset and Chris was his friend, it wasn't that surprising that Tony would talk toPacci. I do also want to respond to another guest reviewer but I will wait to the end of the chapter. Hope you enjoy the next chapter, everyone.

Oops, nearly forgot. Credit to Arress for Ducky's excuse. Not that I think any excuse cuts the mustard lol.

Left For Dead

Chapter 4

Ducky was in autopsy, attending to the endless paperwork that was both the scourge of his life and an imperative to ensure that the guilty received their just deserts when they had to answer for their crimes. His concentration was rudely shattered when Leroy Jethro Gibbs stormed into his domain, his face thunderous.

"I'm gonna kill him, Duck!"

The medical examiner lay down his pen and rubbed his hands across his face, not sure if he really wanted to know why Gibbs was in such a foul mood. He had a fair idea that it involved Anthony. Since the young man had been injured coming to the rescue of an unfortunate young runaway, he had battled a rather unpleasant infection which necessitated him being on the strongest of IV antibiotics and he had been keeping them all from getting any restful sleep. Thankfully, now it seemed that he'd turned the corner and as of two days ago had been transferred out of ICU and into a regular room. Even though he was doing much better, unhappily, the side effects from the drugs were taking their toll on him, still. Although everyone was finally able to breathe again, it seemed that the young man had done something else to invoke the considerable ire of his formidable boss.

"What has Anthony done now, Jethro?" He inquired cautiously. The medical examiner regarded his long-time friend with something approaching trepidation, since Jethro's young protégé had quite a talent for attracting trouble.

"I'll tell you what the damn fool has done, Duck. He's gone and signed himself out of the hospital AMA and now he's disappeared. That's what he's done and when I track him down, I'm gonna slap him silly."

The furious agent paced and as he ranted, the volume and intensity of his speech increased until he was practically shouting. Just to emphasize his point, he swept all the surgical implements that were laid out on the stainless steel trolley awaiting the next autopsy, off the stainless steel surface, with a frantic flourish.

Ducky frowned, feeling an unsettled fluttery feeling in the pit of his stomach "Oh my goodness, that was not advisable, my friend."

"Well I already know THAT, Duck. Why do ya think I'm so pissed off with him?"

Ducky nodded, swallowing hard before pointing out some home truths. "You do realise you have set an dreadful example for that young man with your own appalling habit of signing yourself out of hospital against medical advice but what would make him act so rashly? The boy is so weak, he can barely stand. I'm actually rather shocked he managed to get out of bed, let alone make it out of the hospital." He paused before regarding his friend.

"What on earth would prompt him run off, Jethro?" He glared at his friend, censoriously. "What did you do to him?"

Gibbs glared right back at him, outraged. "I didn't do anything to him, Duck. Why the Hell would you think that?"

Ducky examined his friend, who seemed genuinely miffed at Ducky's accusation. "Jethro, you must have done or said something that prompted him to run. Tell me...what was the last conversation you had with him? Tell me exactly what you said and don't leave anything out," he instructed the stubborn agent.

"Nothing, I swear Duck." Gibbs held up his hands, palms showing, in supplication. Abby called the team leader Papa Bear but truly when Ducky's protective instinct was provoked he could be ruthless; they'd all learnt never to mess with him when he was truly riled.

"I told him the Doc was thinking about letting him come home in a couple of days. He was real happy. Ya know how he hates doctors and hospitals? So I was telling him that he was coming to stay at my place when he got out of hospital, then he said he was tired and he wanted to nap for a while. He even asked the nurse for something to help him sleep and… oh damn it Duck, since when does DiNozzo willingly ask for drugs to knock him out? So what spooked him?" He stared at the elderly ME, bemused by the look of disbelief on his face.

Ducky looked at him sadly. "I rather think that there are a couple of things that might have made him run. He doesn't cope well when you are nice to him, as you will recall and you have been rather solicitous to him ever since he was injured. I'm not sure why but for some reason he cannot handle kindness from you, although he seems more able to cope with compassion and charity from myself or young Abigail. Perhaps because we make it a habit of treating him with care since he is rather fragile, despite his tough guy packaging. Then of course, there is the issue of telling him that he was going to be going home to your place. That was the most likely the catalyst, I fear."

"What the Hell's wrong with telling him he's coming home with me? He needs somewhere to stay where he'll be safe and can recover." Gibbs practically yelled in frustration. "Why would that make him run away? Tell me that."

"He is loath to appear weak in your eyes, dear boy. He desperately wants to have your respect and he thinks you are going to take him in because you pity him, and that is something he will never tolerate." Ducky looked sad and guilty, since they all bore responsibility for this mess.

"Bah, not this crap again. I told him I want him to come back to my place. Why can't he accept that I mean what I say?" Gibbs snarled.

Ducky stared at him intently. "Exactly, Jethro. And you…well we all did, in our own ways, tell him very bluntly when he came to us needing help, that we didn't want him to stay with us. It was only once he was hurt that we all extended invitations for him to come and stay with us, while he recovers. Of course he thinks the invitations has been extended because we pity him. How is he to know that it isn't pity that drives us but our own guilt? "

"Maybe, Duck but DiNozzo knows that I don't say anything I don't mean. I've never lied to him."

"But Jethro, first you told him you didn't want him in your home, twice it seems, before you changed your mind. You also preach the dictum that actions speak louder than word, yet none of us were concerned that he had nowhere to stay. We didn't even bother to inquire where he was living for those two weeks. We all just assumed that he'd found a bed somewhere. Just like Cate assumed that he couldn't afford to pay for a motel room because of his carousing and if we were all being completely honest, while it was an uncharitable thought, it had probably occurred to all of us."

He looked at his friend guiltily. "Yet how typical of Anthony to pay for a hotel suite for those rather formidable ladies, who had nowhere else to go and put his own needs at the end of the queue. He took to heart your message that your action speaks louder than words. I've been conversing at great length with the lad's Grandmothers…" Ducky was sharp as a tack and noticed Gibbs surreptitious elevation of his upper lip but he chose to ignore Jethro's amusement as he continued. "… and it seems he is quite the Angel of Mercy to his elderly neighbours. He runs messages, helps with odd jobs and makes himself available day or night to check out strange noises and suspicious strangers. It hardly fits in with his skirt chasing, joking and casual exterior does it? Listening to those women and the scores of his neighbours who have flitted in to see him since he was moved out of ICU, it seems that our boy is quite the paragon of virtue."

Gibbs looked at him, still angry, but Ducky surmised now it was most likely self- directed anger rather than wanting to strangle his senior field agent anymore. Good, Jethro needed to find Anthony and try and convince him that he should return to the hospital as a matter of urgency. He wasn't fit to be out of bed, yet. Ducky shook his head.

They had really let him down quite comprehensively. Oh he could, indeed he had, rationalised his own rebuff of Anthony's tentative approach; by telling himself that his mother would be stressed by having strangers in the house and he'd wanted to protect her privacy. Since she had become ill, her eccentricities had magnified and he was very protective of her dignity.

Yet clearly, Anthony would have been understanding and protective of Victoria too if his treatment of Lillian, Carla and Raelene was anything to go by. According to them, he'd insisted on paying extra so that they could have cooking facilities and ensured they had plenty of food while they were homeless. Oh yes, he'd assumed, when at his stage of life not to mention with his life experiences, he should have known better. _Haven't you learnt the lesson yet that you don't judge a book by its cover, Donald,_ he chided himself sharply. Anthony had cut his teeth as a beat cop and you don't get any more grass roots or hands on that that. He was good at dealing with people from all walks of life; it was what made him such a great foil for Jethro. _  
_

Unable to quell his curiosity any longer, he asked his long-time friend the question that had been troubling him since young Anthony's injury had occurred.

"Tell me, if it isn't too private a question, Jethro; what was it that Anthony did when he stayed with you the first time that was so terrible?"

Gibbs face darkened with anger but Ducky knew that with Jethro, any evoking of emotions, even benign ones and most especially positive feelings, invariably triggered Jethro's default setting slash defense mechanism of anger. That being the case, he wasn't perturbed by the display, nor was he put off either, which he suspected may well be Gibbs intention. Ducky just maintained eye contact until Gibbs surrendered. Oh, it was the most subtle of tells and only because he knew the man so well and for so long, was he able to detect the minute relaxation of muscles in his shoulders and jaw, but it spoke volumes to the ME.

"He yabbered non-stop, he snooped and he played Ke… he played the piano, he nagged me about me eating all the time and he wouldn't sit still for longer than two seconds. Drove me clear up the wall, Duck and that was just when he was sleeping."

"Mmm, it sounds as if he was acting very out of character," Ducky joked wondering about the piano. He didn't know that Gibbs was musical and what was he going to say before he stopped himself? Could this have been the real reason for Jethro's ire at his young protégé; did he have a deep, dark secret that he felt Anthony might uncover. The lad was an exceptional sleuth after all and Gibbs was obsessive about maintaining his privacy. No one even knew the name of the mysterious redhead in the silver convertible that squired him around town.

"Be that as it may, my friend, I hope you'll allow me to make the following observation. You need to find him ASAP but you already knew that. When you do find him though, he is going to need a gentle hand. Think of him as a wild mustang that has permitted you to throw a saddle on his back and carry your weight but will never truly be tamed. If you try to force him to go home with you, he will cut and run and if he can't do that, you will break his spirit and lose him anyway. You have to let him come to you and we have to slowly rebuild the trust that we have all destroyed."

"Ya want me to read the Horse Whisperer too, Duck? DiNozzo's no dang horse, he's my senior field agent, damn it." Gibbs glared at him, sarcastically.

Ducky pursed his lips. "Mock me all you want Jethro but if you force that boy to stay with you, he will think it is out of pity and he will resign. And none of us want to see that happen, you have to find some way of convincing him. I have the utmost faith that if anyone can, it is you. For some reason he seems determined to win your undying approval, so do not blow it."

~Left For Dead~

The bullpen was tense and frenetic as Gibbs and Cate searched in vain for their missing teammate. Abby was also helping with the search, whenever her forensic duties with the other NCIS teams allowed. Gibbs had talked to Dr Rodriguez, who had tried to convince Tony not to leave the hospital and he told the team leader that he has still been completing his intravenous antibiotics when he walked out. He assured the irate leader that he had insisted Tony take a prescription for oral antibiotics when he left and get it filled as a matter of urgency. Gibbs snorted sarcastically and muttered something about Hell freezing over.

Honestly, Gibbs concluded angrily, the chances of DiNozzo taking medication without someone holding a gun to his head, were next to nil. He had an extreme aversion to taking drugs, even over the counter variety and it was a battle every time he was hurt. There were times when he wondered if his senior field agent had a death wish, since he seemed to attract trouble and injuries without even trying. Ducky felt that it wasn't suicidal tendencies that accounted for his alacrity in throwing his body into the line of fire and had hinted to him that it was more to do with DiNozzo's childhood, which he had described as less than stellar.

The ME had also lectured him after one incident when his agent had ended up with several cracked ribs for the first, though most definitely not the last time. Although in considerable pain, DiNozzo has categorically refuse to take the prescribed analgesic drugs that the doctors had prescribed. According to Ducky, he was merely aping his mentor who as a hard-bitten Marine had a disdain about the perceived weakness of needing drugs to endure pain. Gibbs personally had little time for Ducky's attempt to blame him for DiNozzo's stubbornness.

After all, he did his part, ordering the young idiot to take his medications and take care of himself. He adhered to the well-worn aphorism_- do as I say, not as I do._ While a tiny portion of his brain whispered that he might bear some responsibility since he knew DiNozzo had a case of hero- worship going on, he ruthlessly pushed those doubts aside.

Telling Cate to expand the search and also check with the LOLs to see if they knew anything about his disappearance and whereabouts, he ignored her scowl as he headed toward the stairs, intending to head down to see if Duck and Abby had any bright ideas. When he was in the stairwell, Gibbs permitted himself a wry chuckle. He didn't envy Cate her task of talking with the LOLs.

They looked like a trio of sweet old ladies but they had savaged Gibbs and his team for not taking care of DiNozzo and not taking him in when he needed a bed. Gibbs was well used to criticism and usually revelled in treating controversy with a glorious contempt for his critics but somehow, those three elderly yet formidable women, made him feel like a naughty school boy and it was not a feeling that he enjoyed. Needless to say, it crapped him off, big time and sent him searching for oblivion with his best buddy Jack. Unfortunately, Ducky had no fresh idea's either and scoffed when Gibbs shared their profiler's contribution that he might head home to his parents in Long Island.

"Really Jethro, Ms Todd's abilities aren't up to scratch if she hasn't picked up that Anthony is estranged from his father. He rarely mentions him and when he does it is usually something rather perturbing, even if it is cloaked in humour. Anthony has done a good job of snowing our Cate, I'm afraid. I am fairly confident that our boy would seek you out before he would go crawling off back to his father."

Gibbs scowled at his friend. He didn't have anything to go on apart from his gut that told him that Anthony DiNozzo Senior wasn't fit to shine his son's boots and he'd welcome the opportunity for at least five minutes to tell him that too. "Gee thanks, Duck. I'm one step above that piece of crap, according to you. With friends like you…"

"Don't be dense, dear boy. I merely meant that at the moment, since Anthony is running away from you, you're probably one of the last people he intends on approaching, even if he idolises you to death," Ducky hastened to soothe his fractious colleague.

Proving that this episode had manage to rattle the equilibrium of the big tough Marine, he did a one eighty degree turn that would have wrong-footed someone who wasn't as mentally agile as the mature pathologist. "If he idolises me, as you say, then why is he running away from the hospital to get away from me, Duck? Doesn't sound like a case of hero-worship to me."

Sighing, Ducky patiently explained it once again. "We hurt him, Jethr,o all of us, including you. Knowing how he blames himself for the ills of the world and the sordid mess with Cate and Suzzanne McNeil surely exemplifies that amply, he has managed to twist our less than charitable behaviour around to blame himself. And before you ask why, it is because he can't bear to blame us, since he thinks of us as his family. It is much less emotionally confronting for it to be his fault since he is used to being blamed for everything. He no doubt, had little difficulty convincing himself that he is too weak for us to bother with him, so he needs to prove himself to us by showing he can be strong and independent."

"How can such a savvy investigator be so stupid?" Gibbs demanded irritably.

Ducky glowered, his usually benign blue eyes, full of fire. "I suspect your gut has already supplied you with the answer. Someone important to that boy convinced him that he wasn't worthy of being loved and nurtured. Taught him he was weak and that he was to blame, whenever something bad happened. Instilled in him the belief that his needs, his life are less important than others and it probably happened when his character was forming a long time ago. As you Americans are so fond of saying, _you do the Math…"_

The ringing of Gibbs phone interrupted the medical examiner mid rant and the agent held up his hand, indicating that he needed to take the call. "Yes Director, I'll be right up." He flipped the phone shut and slipped it back into his pocket, sighing. "Gotta go, Duck. Let me know if you come up with anything better than calling Senior, will ya?" His eyes twinkled briefly. "Cate's calling on the LOLs to see if he's hiding out with them."

"Oh my Gibbs, I must say, rather her than me. Especially if they don't know that he's gone AWOL from the hospital. Those formidable women will rip her to shreds."

"Why'd ya think, I made her call on them without me?" The big bad Marine quippe,d as he hot-footed it out of Autopsy

A/N To the guest who wasn't happy that it was a "poor Tony" story 'm sorry however I would just observe it shouldn't have been too much of a surprise since a story marked as being in the hurt/ comfort genre is often a giveaway, as was the story summary which I spent quite a while writing. (Summaries may look easy but I struggle with them.) I'm sorry if your were mislead. Just a couple of response to your observations. Tony could not go home with Jimmy Palmer since he didn't start working at NCIS until Bete Noire and Ducky had already refused Tony's request. To the best of my knowledge, the only Frat brother that was residing in DC was Steve Adler and for reasons that will become apparent later on he wasn't an option. As to him staying with cop buddies, he would not have asked them, for the same reason he refused Chris Pacci's offer too. Finally, to your observation that at least he had somewhere to stay when he ended up in hospital, you are correct in your observation. I hope that you aren't reading this since you obviously didn't enjoy the preceding chapters but should you do so, may I suggest that you do what I do when I don't enjoy a story, I don't read it. Thank-you for taking time to share your thoughts, I appreciate that you chose to express them respectfully and I"m sure with all the amazing writers on FF you will be able to find a story more to your liking.


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: I don't own the NCIS characters but the LOLs Lil, Carla and Rae are all mine. Alas I am not benefiting financially from this story, it is purely for entertainment purposes.

Rating: T mainly to be safe for some bad language.

This story isn't beta'ed so please excuse my less than perfect punctuation.

A/N Once again thank-you to everyone for your response to the story. I continue to find lots of reviews and alerts in my inbox alerting me to new followers and people who have faved the story. Thank-you to all the reviews and thanks everyone for the support about my response to the reviewer at the end of the last chapter. Teri, I appreciate the FYI, my bad. The intricacies of the US medical insurance system is difficult for we non-residents to follow but I'll see if I can't turn that around somehow :) Certainly keep it in mind for next time! Hope you enjoy!

Left For Dead

Chapter 5

Director Tom Morrow sat at his desk, examining the fax that he held in his hand, surprised by what he'd heard and read and waiting impatiently for Gibbs to appear and explain what the Hell he was doing. Knowing that his Supervisory Special Agent never bothered to knock, he wasn't shocked when he looked up to find that Jethro was standing in front of him, smirking slightly.

"Gibbs, are you working on anything interesting at the moment?" He asked the agent, who was looking decidedly frazzled.

"No not really, Director. Just catching up with paperwork and cold cases. "

"Mmm, how's DiNozzo doing?" Morrow stared at the head of the Major Case Response Team penetratingly.

"He's much better, out of ICU a couple of days ago. He'll be on desk duty for a while when he comes back but the doctors are hopeful he'll make a full recovery."

"I see, well that's good news. He was in ICU for quite a while. By the way, I have placed a commendation in his file for going to the aid of that young girl. Turns out she is the grand-daughter of a decorated Admiral. Her mother took up with some sleazy boyfriend who started molesting her, so she ran away and ended up living on the streets. Admiral Jerome wants to personally thank our hero, when he's feeling up to it."

"I'll let him know, Tom. Hopefully the Fibbies will catch those dirtbags soon but since the girl is related to an Admiral and DiNozzo is an NCIS agent, surely that should be enough for us to take over the case. Especially since they haven't caught them yet?" Gibbs pressured his boss, since he had railed against handing over the case to the FBI in the first place, especially as it wasn't Fornell handling the investigation.

"Maybe Gibbs, I'll talk to SecNav about it. Now, is there something that you want to tell me?" The NCIS Director saw a minute flicker of something tp panic flash across the team leader's face but only because he knew him so well.

"No, Director. No active cases, currently."

"Yet Agent Todd and yourself are seemingly very busy, Jethro. It wouldn't have anything to do with Special Agent DiNozzo's frantic escape from the hospital against medical advice, would it?" He was rather pleased to see Gibbs brief look of surprise before he schooled his features into his familiar scowl.

"How did you hear about that, Tom?" he countered.

The director handed him the fax he had been perusing. "Well, when I am contacted by DiNozzo's attorney, who apparently also holds his power of attorney, and he warns us to back off harassing his client or he'll take out a restraining order, I tend to take a personal interest in the situation. I really wish that I had been read in on the situation, Agent Gibbs. I felt like an idiot when Mr Adler complained that you had driven DiNozzo into fleeing from medical care against his doctors' advice. He apparently collapsed shortly after deplaning from his flight to New York. He's back in hospital again, which is probably a good thing, all things considered." He stared at Gibbs who looked like he was ready to bolt.

"Jethro, you are not to go chasing to New York after him, is that clear?" He could see Gibbs getting that, _no one is going to tell me what I can or can't do_ look.

"I have to, Director. I'm his medical proxy."

"No, Gibbs. Adler has called in some favours with a judge and currently he has replaced you as his medical proxy, I'm afraid and he doesn't want you to go near DiNozzo. So I'm ordering you to stay the Hell away from him for the time being. Park your ass in that chair and tell me what you did to your agent that had him high tail it out of the hospital and DC like a scalded cat."

"Why the devil does everyone blame me for DiNozzo running away?" Gibbs yelled; kicking the trash can in anger.

Morrow grinned at him, "Because we know you too well, Jethro. You're not exactly renowned for your people skills, let's be honest. C'mon man, let's see what damage you've done this time and how we are gonna fix it, shall we?" He knew that Gibbs would know that it wasn't really a request, even if his superior had couched it that way, to soothe his dignity.

Gibbs huffed exasperatedly, falling into the chair. "All I did was tell DiNozzo he was coming back to my place when he was released from hospital, since his apartment wasn't ready to be moved back into for a couple more weeks and he needed someplace to stay that was warm and had electricity. Why the Hell is it such a crime, damn it? I'm just looking out for my team; it's my job."

"Did you offer Tony a place to stay or did you order him to come and stay with you, Jethro because it matters?"

Gibbs shrugged. "I told him, Tom; just like I have told him to do stuff hundreds of times before. He knows, my team my rules. He's known it, since I took him on two and a half years ago. Don't see the problem."

"Maybe so Gibbs, although I'm not surprised with such a high handed attitude, why you have problems keeping agents on your team. I wouldn't stand for it. But be that as it may, I'd wager a guess that the fact that you had previously told DiNozzo you didn't want him staying at your place might be an issue." He noticed Gibbs expression.

"What my friend, you're not the only one who sneaks around listening to water cooler gossip or scuttlebutt. I may not be a bad assed Marine but I have done my share of covert ops too. And I know that Tony is one stubborn SOB. He has to be to stand up to you, old friend." He smiled to rob the words of offence. "I have observed that Tony doesn't like you treating him kindly and while I have suspicions about why that might be, I think that after refusing his request, he feels the only reason you would drag him home is out of pity, Gibbs and he will not tolerate that. He doesn't understand you are really acting out of guilt." He laughed at the Marine's look of murderous outrage.

"You know Jethro, if you had just apologised for being such an ass and then asked him nicely to come home with you, this all might have been averted." Morrow noticed Gibbs opening his mouth and beat him to it. "Yeah, I know, it goes against you're precious rules but this is one of mine that served me well over the years. Morrow's Rule is apologies take guts to give when you're wrong but it's worth the pain. Anyway, what done is done! The question is, have you chased away a very gifted investigator? If you have, you will have invoked the deep displeasure of your Director and I suspect the rest of the staff too, especially all the ladies."

Gibbs growled, not wanting to concede that Morrow had a point. "So want do you recommend I do, Director?"

"Something that you'll find extremely difficult, I fear, Gibbs. Back off and respect his wishes. Give Tony some breathing space. Honestly, with Adler on your ass, you really don't have a choice. If you try and drag him back here to DC and force him to stay with you, he'll take off for sure and we'll both lose our agent. Too late to lock the stable door Gunny; your horse has already bolted."

Gibbs exploded, "What is with everyone comparing DiNozzo to a horse?"

Morrow just stared at him. "Go home, tonight Gibbs and work on your boat or get yourself soused, but back off and figure out how you're all going to regain his trust when he comes back."

~ Left for Dead ~

Abby was readying herself for bed, her face scrubbed and fresh after the removal of her Goth make-up. Her eyes were red and swollen from hours of crying and she was exhausted, hoping that her brain would wind down and let her sleep. Tony was in hospital in New York, with only his Frat brother Steve Adler to watch over him and they'd made him feel like he had to run away, just so that he didn't look weak. She knew better than most, since he had told her some stories about his childhood, that his father had constantly berated him for being weak and useless. She knew that he felt driven to never allow anyone to see him when he was vulnerable, since he thought that it made him look weak. It was ironic that Tony had been attracted to a boss that was equally loathe to show any vulnerabilities and who, like his father had rules to live by that involved not showing weakness to others.

Since Tony was incredibly brave, some might argue stupidly so, and didn't need any egging on from her Silver Fox, she had made it her business to be a soft and loving friend and confidant. Something told her that despite having a string of step mothers growing up after losing his mother when he was eight, none of them, even his mother had done even a remotely adequate job of giving him the nurturing he should have received. She had, very early on noticed how when she hugged him, he froze up like he didn't know what to do with her attention and so she made it her business to give him extra hugs to make up for all the ones he never got as a kid. At least now, he was learning how to not shrink away when she gave him one but Abby realised there'd been precious few in the last few months.

Since Cate had joined the team and she clicked with the newcomer, she realised too late, she'd been ganging up on Tony with her new gal pal, as well as excluding him altogether. Add to that unforgivable transgression, she'd been spending the rest of her spare time playing with her latest toy boy, Timmy whilst neglecting her good friend. Truly, being really honest, she had to admit that the fact that the geeky probie agent from Norfolk got a tattoo on his ass simply to impress her; had been a huge turn on. Since he was definitely not her usual type, she'd been intrigued to discover just what lengths he was willing to go to, to sleep with her. She was looking forward to convincing the way-too- tightly strung, goodie two-shoes Timmy to make-out with her in her coffin in the not too distant future.

So in between her ganging up with Cate on Tony and playing her power games with the geek, she had left Tony feeling excluded and abandoned and she knew that he already had issues with both, stemming way back to his childhood. Some good friend that made her. Then, when Tony told her in his little boy hurt voice, about Cate taking on a perfect stranger as a roomie so she wouldn't have to turn him down, she'd just laughed at him. Even worse though, Abby had promptly forgotten about it, never bothering to offer him a place to stay, assuming he knew that she would let him stay with her if he needed to. But looking back, she's made him think that he was yesterday's news and with his childhood of being sent away to school so his father could play with his new wives, it didn't take much to trigger Tony's insecurities. No wonder he would think that he wouldn't be welcome to crash on her couch.

The worst thing about the way she and the team had treated him, was that instead of getting pissed off with them like he should have, he turned it all around and blamed himself instead. How was it possible to convince a kid that when people messed up it was always because of something he did? Honestly, listening to him sometimes, she got the feeling that he thought he never should have been born, which was a terribly way to live a life. Abby felt like such a heel for turning her back on him, after treating him as a friend.

Honestly, she knew that it was worse than the way that Cate treated him, like he was a particularly distasteful piece of crap. Abby had convinced him she was his friend; that he mattered to her and was someone she truly valued and then she'd removed her support just when he was feeling like he was being replaced by Cate on the team. Hence her remorse but she couldn't even go to him and hug him and tell him she screwed up, since he was lying, essentially alone in a hospital in New York. She really hoped that he returned to DC soon so she could start to make it up to him for being such a lousy friend. She decided to send him a text right now, letting him know that she cared about him.


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: I don't own the NCIS characters but the LOLs Lil, Carla and Rae are all mine. Alas I am not benefiting financially from this story, it is purely for entertainment purposes.

Rating: T mainly to be safe for some bad language.

This story isn't beta'ed so please excuse my less than perfect punctuation.

A/N Once again thank-you to everyone for your response to the story. I continue to find lots of reviews and alerts in my inbox alerting me to new followers and people who have faved the story. Just a couple of points. For those reviewers requesting to know the contents of Abby's text to Tony - nosy aren't you? LOL. Patience, good things come to those who wait and as to why he went to New York, that information with be shared in the same chapter - later :). Finally, this chapter is a wee bit shorter than most and I'm sorry but it was just how it came out in the wash, I'm afraid. Hope you enjoy!

Left For Dead

Chapter 6

"Donald, where are you, Tyson needs to go walkies," Victoria Mallard called out to her long suffering son, as she sat in front of the television watching her favourite episode of Jeopardy for the third time that night. Although she didn't remember that she had already watched it that many times, her offspring did and taken refuge from Alex Trebeck's smiling visage and the questions that were so infuriatingly familiar he could recite them in his sleep. That being the case and not wanting to take his frustrations out on his elderly mother who was suffering from the ravages of Alzheimer's Disease, he had removed himself from the living room.

Ducky arose from his wing backed chair in the den and laid aside his book with a sigh, deciding he'd take the entire corgi clan out to empty their bladders and bowels before they retired for the night and he grabbed up all their leashes. Ducky's whistling to call them to the front entrance, set off an inevitable cacophony, consisting of the scrabbling of stubby paws and an assortment of high pitched yips and yaps. As he set off down the front steps with dogs in tow, he thought, not for the first time that he wished his mother had fallen in love with a breed that was less yappy and a little more masculine for him to exercise and cohabit with, perhaps Labradors or spaniels.

As he set off with the beasts he chided himself, since the dogs were increasingly becoming her lifeline, as the dreaded disease robbed her of more and more of her memories every day. While he was a pragmatist, mostly thanks to his job, he sometimes couldn't help asking why a woman of such sharp intellect and wicked sense of humour as Victoria Eugenia Mallard would have to suffer the indignity of slowly losing her memories and ability to control her own destiny. Knowing that there was no rhyme or reason to the terrible disease that was increasingly striking at the very fibre of countless families, right across the country, he turned his thoughts instead to the conundrum that was currently threatening his friends and colleagues.

As he watched the pack, when he let them off the leash to stretch their stumpy little paws out and rough house around, he thought about his own cringe worthy behaviour. Ducky wasn't sure what had prompted him to be so inordinately mean-spirited when Anthony had started hinting about staying at his place. He tried to tell himself, it was his desire to spare his mother the stress and confusion of dealing with strangers, since if she had full use of her faculties she would hate for people to see her in this state of confusion. Victoria Mallard had always been an inordinately prideful woman, obsessive about her appearance and insistent on observing proper etiquette, no matter the circumstances.

Yes, he tried to assure himself that he had the noblest of intentions and had been merely protecting his beloved mother, just as he had convinced himself earlier today. Even so, a small voice, without doubt his conscience muttered constantly in the background, telling him his motives weren't so altruistic. It was true that even after a lifetime of living with a larger than life Victoria Mallard, after decades of tripping around the world, experiencing a life that was full of exotic adventures, after a career where he had served as a well-respected physician and a highly esteemed forensic pathologist, his mother still possessed the ability to embarrass the heck out of her much cherished only child. Now that Alzheimer's had taken his mother hostage, it had exaggerated her eccentricities manifold and he had to wonder if he was protecting her dignity or trying to protect his reputation.

He knew that there was still very much of a stigma to Alzheimer's disease and dementia and he wondered if he was immune to the ugly prejudice that still flourished. Was it that he ashamed of his colleagues and friends knowing about his mother? While he considered himself an enlightened member of the medical fraternity, he hoped he hadn't been motivated as a less than perfect member of the human race and less than patient son, even if he feared that the answer was affirmative. As he called the little devils back to him to head home, Ducky resolved to invite Anthony to Reston House for lunch one weekend when he returned to work. He just hoped that the young man hadn't caused himself too much harm in his impulsive flight from their pathetic and belated concern.

~ Left for Dead ~

Cate Todd finished soaking her rice noodles in boiling water and flipped the sizzling hot wok to rotate the stir-fried veggies and tofu to finish cooking her dinner and thought back to her conversation today with Lil Cramer. When Gibbs had ordered her to talk to Tony's 'grandmothers' to find out if they knew where he'd gone, she'd figured that Lil would be the best one to talk to, since she looked like such a sweet little old woman but she was belatedly reminded of Gibbs' Rule # 8. She'd assumed, based on Lil's appearance and darn but she had the teeth marks to prove that the woman was actually a Rottweiler in disguise.

Lil had savaged her for the Team not doing right by Tony, getting him stabbed and that was before she discovered that Tony had signed himself out AMA from the hospital and dang if the loony octogenarian didn't go completely loco on her. She'd unleashed such a tongue lashing on the unfortunate agent that even the most harridans of the nuns who had educated her as a child, would have stood in awe of the gentle looking, blue-rinse granny. Unfortunately, at the end of the verbal flagellation, Cate still had no clearer idea of what had happened to DiNozzo to show for withstanding the punishment.

Cate really hadn't been looking forward to returning to the office without some piece of information to placate Gibbs. Gee, if she thought he was an anal retentive, type A personality with the developmental ability to delay gratification of a toddler; he had been even worse since DiNozzo had been hurt. Frankly, he was angry with everyone and Cate wasn't sure if it was because he was angry with himself or if it was due to him blaming them all for turning their backs on a fellow team member. Since he was a Marine to his very bootstraps, he took very seriously the maxim that you leave nobody behind.

Mind you, if he was annoyed with the rest of the team, it couldn't be any greater than Cate was feeling already. She was so busy beating herself up for making such a rookie mistake with Suzanne McNeill and exposing her deficiencies to Gibbs and DiNozzo that she hadn't bothered to see what was right in front of her nose. She'd made a huge error in judgement about Jane Doe but she'd made a much worse one with the senior field agent. She'd been working with him for weeks now and she had him pegged as a self- indulgent, chauvinistic jerk with the hide of a rhinoceros. Who'd know he'd be so sensitive or that he could somehow feel guilty for her nearly getting them all blown up by a crazy woman, bent on revenge. As a profiler, she really had no excuse for not picking up on him blaming himself for her mistakes, except that she was wallowing.

She had been so superior when she joined the MCRT, confident that she belonged on the pre-eminent investigatory team in NCIS by reason of the fact that she was a seasoned Secret Service agent and an experienced profiler. To make such a rookie profiling error so soon after her lapse in professional judgement, leading to her resignation from the SS had her questioning herself and her ability to become a special agent on Gibbs team. It was a blow to her self-esteem and she wasn't used to failing and she didn't like it. So she had dropped the ball and sure, she hadn't stabbed Tony but the maxim of watching your partner's back, was something to strive for and not just in the physical sense. As a profiler, she should have been aware that he was having a hard time emotionally, no excuses and having a hard time because of her actions no less!

As she slid her stir-fry veggies out of the wok and onto her plate along with some noodles, she winced as she recalled Lil pointing to her crucifix that she wore around her neck and regarding her with scorn. Where was her charity when her co-worker needed somewhere to stay, she taunted her disdainfully? Was she just a Christian in name only, because she didn't think she was living up to the principles of her religion by her deeds, Missy? Yeah she actually called her Missy and made her feel a only a couple of inches tall. Frankly, Cate who was always ready with a snarky comeback found that this time she had nothing to say to such a pertinent question.

She thought about Tony, driven to flee DC to New York to escape their clumsy attempts to make up for their earlier mean behaviour and try to themselves feel better. Obviously, they'd left it too late and now he wasn't able to accept their help. She also wondered why, when she'd suggested that he'd simply headed back to the DiNozzo family mansion so that his parents could coddle him, Abby and Ducky had vehemently denied that this was a possibility. Cate got the idea that there was a story to be uncovered about Tony's parents, going by her colleague's reactions, since if she was sick and needed coddling she'd head home to her parents or her siblings to be spoilt rotten.

Hopefully she could discover what it was, when he returned to work in a few weeks and she could find out why other people saw such a different side to him than she did. Ducky and Abby didn't strike her as individuals to suffer fools gladly, so their admiration and affection for DiNozzo must mean that he was much less shallow than she'd labelled him. It was also pretty clear that there had to be a heck of a lot more to Tony than the chauvinist pig that she had observed since Rae, Lil and Carla positively doted on him. While they looked like sweet LOLs they weren't exactly pushovers. Even Gibbs and Ducky quaked when then were around which was pretty funny.


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: I don't own the NCIS characters but the LOLs Lil, Carla and Rae are all mine. Alas I am not benefiting financially from this story, it is purely for entertainment purposes.

Rating: T mainly to be safe for some bad language.

This story isn't beta'ed so please excuse my less than perfect punctuation.

A/N Once again thank-you to everyone for your response to the story. I continue to find lots of reviews and alerts in my inbox alerting me to new followers and people who have faved the story. Just a couple of points. LilDiNozzoGirl I'm happy to respond to your questions and I would have done so via PM but since you are signed in as a guest I have done so at the end of the chapter so if other people want to skip it, they can although you raised a good point about motivation but my answer is too long. And for regular readers of mine, they were probably just waiting for this announcement. *grins* I know I stated initially that LFD would be eight chapters long but um ahem... there will be one additional chapter. I tend to be a bit of a cynic... okay a lot cynical and my bleak endings are not of the happily ever after variety but I ask you, when you know that ten years on, DiNozzo is still being used for comic relief and everyone seems to forget that he is supposed to be scarily competent "best young agent ever" so I find warm fuzzy endings impossible to write. Anywa,y thank you to Catsmeou for her feedback that she needed more closure:) So, I ended up writing some addition scenes that hopefully give a little more resolution but I'm still not promising warm and fuzzy, either. :D

Left For Dead

Chapter 7

Gibbs was down in his basement, sanding the ribs of his latest folly, and gulping rather than sipping from his best buddy, Jack. Not because he was following Tom's orders. Oh no, he was down there because he wanted to be, no needed to be there, chasing mind numbing oblivion from the guilt that pursued him relentlessly. Guilt had been his constant companion ever since losing his family more than a decade and a half before. Now, as if he didn't have enough guilt to last a thousand lifetimes, he was trying to reconcile his role as Team Leader of the MCRT and his failure to watch DiNozzo's six. He couldn't even try to fix the problem since if he tried to approach Tony, that damned frat brother of his, Steven Adler, a pond scum sucking lawyer, would take out a restraining order on him and that would invoke the considerable ire of his boss.

Getting rotten drunk seemed the only alternative available to him at this point and like every task he undertook, he approached in with a singular mindedness, determined to do it to the best of his ability. Getting shit-faced couldn't come quickly enough but even if he was well on the way, his guilt wouldn't let up on him. '_Never leave a man behind' _was a principle that he truly lived by as a Marine and it didn't just refer to their body either but on this occasion he'd dropped the ball when it came to watching out for DiNozzo. He'd failed to take into account Tony's dedication to looking out for his teammates with a single-mindedness that rivalled Gibbs, even when it wasn't reciprocated.

When he'd rejecting DiNozzo's request for assistance, instead of Tony blaming his team for being asswipes, he'd typically turned it around to blame himself. If he hadn't thwarted Tony's natural response to try and help Cate, he might not have done such a hatchet job on himself and ended up in hospital. It made him mad to think how Tony's default setting was to blame himself. As much as Gibbs recognised that he possessed a deep vein of self-loathing too because of his inability to accept the loss of his wife and only child, he found it difficult to accept that such a young and promising agent could possess such an intense, deep-seated self-hatred.

So was he somewhat resentful of Tony, who appeared to have it all? He'd been brought up in the lap of luxury, educated at the finest schools and had risen to the heady heights of a sporting hero during his sojourn at college. He had rapidly risen to the top of the Police Department winning a Gold Shield at a ridiculously young age due to his freakish investigative abilities, which likewise earned the attention of Leroy Jethro Gibbs.

He possessed good looks and despite his attempts to appear otherwise, a keen intellect, was well-spoken and well- read, and occasionally slipped up and corrected people's grammar, which was a dead give-away that he wasn't the dumb jock he portrayed. He had charm and the ability to seduce almost anyone possessing an XX chromosome as well as having quite a few male admirers and buddies too. And for all that he acted like the world's biggest jerk, or the village idiot; nearly everybody had a soft spot for him.

Certainly, the entire staff at the Naval Yard seemed to stop by the bullpen daily, to enquire about his condition when he was sick or hurt. He'd had a heap of neighbours turning up at the hospital to see him until Doctor Rodriguez had to restrict his visitors, as word of his attack had spread and every man and his dog took to stopping by. So, did he feel like DiNozzo had no right to harbour such dark self-destructive tendencies?

If he was being totally honest with himself, he probably did. As a Marine who had gone to war to defend his country's liberty and way of life and the fact that he'd paid the ultimate price for performing his duty and lost everything that he held dear, his loss was a sort of talisman that he wore with a sense of entitlement. Although he knew that DiNozzo had lost his mother when he was eight, he had had step mothers and Gibbs told himself that the ex-cop didn't have the right to be so self- indulgent. Again being honest, he also sometimes resented DiNozzo's ability to compartmentalize and make those people around him feel better, even if he was battling against the black dog of depression. Gibbs on the other hand, had always felt that if he was suffering, there was no reason why those around him should be happy, either.

Yet as Ducky had alluded to down in Autopsy today, they both strongly suspected that DiNozzo had experienced a childhood filled with neglect and abuse. His background was more than likely on par with a lot of the dirtbags he arrested and he'd still chosen a life of protecting the weak and refusing to use his misfortune as a crutch. In fact, he was obsessively private about his family background and childhood and when forced to reveal anything personal, would invariably turn it into a funny story, even if it was actually a crime, like being abandoned for two days in a hotel by his father.

Gibbs took a healthy slug of bourbon, desperate to escape the unpleasant thoughts that had taken up residence in his head. Tony might accuse him of being a functional mute and given that he had three failed marriages, it was hard to argue with his observation; it didn't mean that he was without feelings though. Granted that mostly they inspired anger or the desire for revenge, it didn't mean that he wasn't overwhelmed by self-recriminations and doubts. Honestly, tonight he wished that he wasn't feeling the mass of emotions that beset him because all he longed for; was a state of numbness.

Yet, he kept returning to the question his wily old friend had asked him today. Such an innocent query- what had DiNozzo done when he'd stayed with him six months ago, that was so unforgiveable anyway? Even to his own ears as he was extolling Tony's numerous transgressions to Ducky, it had sounded incredibly petty and weak, considering that they were the same qualities that he displayed regularly on the job and which in many ways made him a force to be reckoned with as an investigator. Even if he tried to rationalise his response by telling himself that he craved privacy and solitude when he went home at night; that a man's home was his castle and he was entitled to protect it, it still sounded incredibly petty. Yet he knew that that wasn't the real reason why he had initially refused his 2IC a bed when he was homeless.

When Tony had played his dead daughter Kelly's piano, and damn the man, who knew he could play anyway, Gibbs had become apoplectic with fury that he couldn't hide. He'd seen the questions that had immediately arisen as a result of the piano incident, as Tony regarded him shrewdly and compassionately. Knowing the perspicacity of his investigative streak, Gibbs was frantic to conceal the secret that he'd maintained for more than a decade and a half.

Gibbs was beyond desperate to keep Shannon and Kelly a secret. He told himself that by keeping their existence and their deaths at the hand of a drug baron a secret, he was holding onto the last precious link to his family that he still possessed. Yet his devil's advocate argued that the real reason he wasn't willing to share their existence with his friends and colleagues was the same reason he had cut himself off from his old Marine buddies and comrades.

His brothers-in-arms had encouraged him, entreated him actually, and even resorted to nagging and bullying him to resolve his grief and stop blaming himself for Shannon and Kelly's deaths and instead, to live his life as a testament to his family. They argued gently at first and then more and more forcefully, that Shannon and Kelly wouldn't want to see him turn into an embittered and angry person, alone with only memories to keep him company. Reacting violently to their attempts to pull him out of his self-imposed Hell, he had countered angrily by cutting his ties with anyone and everyone who knew about his family, opting for a fresh start where people couldn't stick their nose in his business and try and make him feel better about the loss he had suffered.

Gibbs didn't want to feel better. He didn't deserve to experience peace or happiness, which was probably why even when he found someone to share his life with, he couldn't let himself be happy. Either he'd self-sabotaged the marriages or his ex-wives had gotten too close to finding out what it was he was keeping from them and he'd driven then away. Either way he always ended up alone, spending his time working on his boat and drinking bourbon in his basement in splendid isolation. Truth be told, he had gotten used to being alone and in pain, was at peace with it and anything that threatened the status quo made him want to lash out, violently.

Honestly, while a very tiny part of him did actually long for happiness again, a much more determined part of him wanted to keep punishing himself for surviving when his beloved daughter and wife had not. Indeed the pain of his loss had become his last tangible link to them and he worried that if he didn't feel the pain, loss and grief anymore, that it would be proof that he didn't love them enough. That was just a part of the equation though.

The truth was that over the years, his guilt, anger and burning need for vengeance had come to define him, maybe not in a good way but he was who he was and comfortable with it now and he was afraid that without it, he would be a shadow of his former self. He'd gotten used to being a bastard with two Bs and he wasn't sure he would know how to act anymore without the overwhelming guilt as his crutch. It was a welcome method of punishing himself for his inability to protect his girls and he had no intention of letting go of that pain or seeking a cure, even if it he knew how.

So when Tony had threatened the comfortable world that he had created for himself, he had reacted with a ruthlessness to protect himself his girls and his life. Just the thought of his having unfettered access to Gibbs deepest secrets had sent the former Gunny into self-preservation mode like a wounded animal and to Hell with his responsibilities as team leader or the fact that Tony had already saved his ass on too many occasions to count. And because of an obsessive need for privacy, he had let his agent down spectacularly and now they were both paying a heavy price for his failure to let go of the past. He couldn't even see him to make sure he was okay. Shit-faced drunk couldn't come fast enough to numb his thoughts and emotions.

* * *

A/N LilDiNozzoGirl re the use of 'Senior in referring to Tony's dad, bearing in mind that it takes place in season 1 well before we meet him in the flesh, I could prevaricate and say that since Gibbs had done a security check on Tony before hiring him, he would know they shared the same name and it was just a convenient way to differentiate. The truth is though, that it slipped past me; one of the reasons I really prefer to have stories beta'd before posting:) That and I rely on my beta to point out that skerrick and other words are not common usage in US. I know basic stuff - lift v elevator, trunk v boot, cell phone v mobile phone but I'm still surprised when my beta's point out less obvious differences. Apart from not getting the story beta'd I also plead, writing too many stories at the same time. I'm working on 6 separate stories at the moment (sheer idiocy) and messed up. Ill go back and correct, so thanks for the catch :)

And you wanted to know why Tony didn't accept someone's offer and took off instead? So I'll preface this by saying this( because someone objected that Tony was OOC since he had proved himself to be a hugely competent agent) that I agree, as a professional, DiNozzo is highly competent and it is one of my pet peeves that he is used mostly for comic relief. But emotionally and psychologically IMHO, Tony is a disaster waiting to happen. His defense mechanisms are like a house of cards and it doesn't take much for one to tumble and then, down comes the whole lot. It is well established in canon that he is self sufficient to the point of stubbornly not asking for help, since he has been looking out for himself since he was twelve (and as the son of two alcoholics) probably much younger. When he actually tried to change an ingrained behaviour and ask for assistance, he got knocked back. For someone with his emotional issues (and there is more about that in later chapters) it was a rejection that others with a different developmental history might have easily laughed off and then been able to accept the subsequent offers. But when you try to change long grained behaviour, if your first few attempts aren't successful it makes it less likely for you to keep trying. If you've tried to stop biting your nails or stop smoking, then you know how critical it is to have early success, for you to want to keep on trying. Anyway, it is often easier to convince yourself once you fail, that there are compelling reasons why you failed and it is easier to self blame than to have to accept like we are at the mercy of fate and life isn't within our control. (The secret was a best seller based on that premise.) If we know it's our fault, from Tony's viewpoint, he can predict that he is always going to stuff it up and there is some comfort in being able to predict with 100 percent accuracy what is going to happen. Flawed thinking but hey, that's why there are so many shrinks :) And because a child that grows up with an alcoholic parent usually has very little control and often lives in chaos, they can become control freaks when they grow up. So his cognitive process goes something like 'my family refused to let me stay, I love my family (team) and they are great therefore it must be my fault that no one wants me to stay at their place.' When he was hurt and they all started offering their homes, Tony would either have to face the truth that they had been less than kind to him when he asked the first time or come up with another explanation for them to have such a dramatic shift in attitude. Because his opinion of his team is unrealistic, it is easier to just play the blame game. So he convinces himself that they now see him as poor Tony who is weak and needs to be rescued. Since he has a morbid fear of being seen as weak because his father has been pounding it into him since he could first process the message, he has to prove to them that he isn't weak. Not saying that the thought processes are sound but he's human and flawed. And it is quite common for people who are highly successful in their professional lives, to have huge issues with their personal/emotion life. Many therapists for example, who can help other people fix their relationship issues, will often be just as messed up with their own relationships.

Hope that explains why Tony made the dumb ass move to go awol. And if anyone is still reading this long winded author's note, you will understand why I placed it at the end of the chapter LOL


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: I don't own the NCIS characters but the LOLs Lil, Carla and Rae are all mine. Alas I am not benefiting financially from this story, it is purely for entertainment purposes.

Rating: T mainly to be safe for some bad language.

This story isn't beta'ed so please excuse my less than perfect punctuation.

A/N Once again thank-you to everyone for your response to the story. I continue to find lots of reviews and alerts in my inbox alerting me to new followers and people who have faved the story.

Left For Dead

Chapter 8

Seventeen days later

Tony stepped off the elevator and into the deserted bullpen which, given that it was barely 0500 hours, wasn't all that surprising but he thought he'd at least have to face the on-duty team that handled the night shift. So with a sigh of relief, he got himself situated and comfortable at his desk and started sorting through his emails and memos, checking on paperwork to see if there was anything outstanding. Either Gibbs or Cate would have completed it in his absence or a TAD would have done so. Whatever the case there were bound to be errors, so he wanted to set them to rights while it all was still calm and mistakes could be corrected before it was too late. When his team arrived, there was bound to be fireworks about him taking off and Steve's rather dramatic throwing his weight around, courtesy of his power of attorney. Threatening Gibbs and the agency – what was he thinking?

When Tony was Compos Mentis enough to actually be aware of what his frat brother and attorney was up to, the damage had already been done. He'd called the Director when he came back to DC yesterday, to apologise profusely for his lawyer and to see if he still had a job and was surprised that Tom Morrow had been rather amused by Steve. That was pretty fortunate, since while he was laid low by a variety of drugs, pain and over exertion, Steve had tried to launch a law suit to sue the agency and Gibbs, to recover the cost incurred for his medical expenses when he signed out of the hospital AMA, since his health insurance refused to pay. At least that was one mystery solved; Gibbs wore Sear's clothes because he was flat out broke after all the times he left hospital AMA. Next time he'd remember to sweet talk his way out rather than emulate the great Leroy Jethro Gibbs; he had no intention of wearing anything from Sear's in the future… or ever.

Tony couldn't believe that Steve was claiming that Tony hadn't been in his right mind when he signed out because his boss was threatening to imprison him, forcing him to flee the hospital and run off to New York to escape. As soon as he heard about the suit, he'd nixed it and torn Steve a new one for pulling that shit on his behalf. He appreciated his Frat brother looking out for him but he wasn't going to blame other people for his messes or expect people to fix them for him. Luckily, Director Morrow didn't seem to bear grudges nor did he seem to have the same pathological hatred of lawyers as his boss, either.

Morrow had assured Tony that he still had a job to return too and that he'd look forward to seeing him again, next week. When Tony had asked if he would be assigned to the cold case squad, Morrow had laughed uproariously, before declaring that he was still Gibbs senior field agent. Then, before he hung up, the Director told him that the girl he'd saved was the grand-daughter of an Admiral who was buddies with SecNav and they'd pulled some strings and called in favours to have his injury reclassified as NCIS related. Somehow, they also persuaded the Health Insurance Company to take care of the bill, no doubt thanks to friends in high places.

So, knowing that the Director would inform Gibbs that he was returning on Monday and reassured that he still had his job, he decided to return today and catch everyone unawares. While his doctor in New York had recommended that he not return to work for a further few days, he had not forbid it, so Tony wouldn't get any grief from the HR department or even worse, Abby or Ducky. If he waited til Monday, Gibbs would be prepared and Tony might act like the class clown but he knew that he would end up paying for his disappearance and for ignoring Gibbs' Rule #3 but he sure as Hell wasn't about to make it any easier for the guy tochew his ass of over it. Apart from the tactical reasons for returning prematurely, Tony was simply bored out of his skull and needed to occupy his brain with something other than movies or music, even if it involved dealing with a boss who made Attila the Hun look like a warm and fuzzy commander by comparison.

He was deep into the monthly requisitions when he mused that it was lucky that he'd checked them out, since someone had ordered 2 boxes of gloves instead of 20 and that they also had failed to order the ten spare cell phones that Gibbs managed on average to destroy every month. While most mere mortals working at the agency who had a work phone supplied, had to jump through all manner of hoops and red tape to requisition a new one should it break or get lost, Director Morrow had granted Tony special dispensation to order new cell phones each month. Working with Gibbs who had a pathological fear of technology and tended to vent his fury in a rather physical fashion, murdering many innocent cell phones along the way, meant that it was necessary to keep a ready supply in his filing cabinet. He hoped that Cate had paid attention to where they lived but hopefully Pacci or someone else would have enlightened her.

Ordering the spare phones and making several other minor alterations, he never noticed Chris' team who was obviously pulling night duty this week, come back into the bull pen. Feeling several pairs of eyes on him, he took a deep breath and looked up expecting to see the angry features of Gibbs and Cate glaring at him. Instead he was greeted by the friendly grins of Chris and his team, all seeming to be happy to see him again. After being slapped on the back and handshakes all round, Chris quirked an eyebrow at him.

"Thought you weren't supposed to start back til Monday, Tony?"

He laughed somewhat uncomfortably. "Since when have you known me to do anything that I was supposed to, Chris?"

"That's very true, DiNozzo," a familiar voice stated, dryly. "You cleared for duty or is this an early morning social call?"

Tony rolled his eyes at Pacci before plastering one of his fake grins across his face as he turned around to face his boss. "Hey Gibbs, nah I'm back and while the doc's not jumping for joy about me coming back today, he has okayed it. Already left the paperwork in Director Morrow's office…Well I guess I better get back to work."

He sat back down and stole a glance at his boss to see how he was coping with his return and was relieved to see that Gibbs didn't look like he was ready to strangle him…yet. In fact Gibbs looked a tad uncomfortable and Tony congratulated himself on catching the Marine unawares. Oh, he was under no illusion that in the longer term, he'd still pay and pay big time for disobeying Gibbs order and not following Rule # 3 but he ascribed to the philosophy that it was better to put off a Gibbs dressing down and punishment for as long as you could.

As he checked through a month long worth of paperwork, emails and inter-agency and intra-agency memos and alerts, he could feel Gibbs staring at him. He'd very carefully set up his workspace so that between multiple monitors that were great reflectors and a couple of discreet miniature mirrors, he could always surreptitiously watch Gibbs when he was anywhere in the bull pen. Being able to monitor his state of mind was paramount, so he could always intervene before things escalated from tense to catastrophic. Watching Gibbs sneakily, he was surprised to see the boss looking rather sheepish which was shocking enough but shortly after when Gibbs headed off for a coffee, he floored him by returning and placing a tea on Tony's desk.

On the rare occasion, he'd sprung for a coffee for his senior field agent when he'd been such an ass that he really needed to apologise and since he didn't do apologies, the coffee had been offered in lieu thereof. The fact that the coffee had been black and strong enough to strip paint had not detracted from the fact that Gibbs with two Bs for bastard had bought him a beverage. Ordering him a cup of tea with lemon and honey though, was tantamount to a belly grovel and Tony was gobsmacked.

He was less surprised though by the directive that was delivered with the tea. "Make sure you report to Ducky after he has a chance to digest your medical clearance and doctor's reports, Tony." Gibbs paused and looked like he was swallowing glass before managing, "Glad you're back and make sure you take a break at lunchtime."

Tony wasn't fooled. He knew that he would have to pay the price for his disobedience, sooner or later, maybe not today or next week but one day in the not too distant future his boss would extract his revenge. Gibbs had a memory like an elephant but it had been worth it. Even though the price had been disregarding Gibbs orders he had no other choice to prove to him, he wasn't weak, pitiful or needed rescuing and could still do his job and be on the team. He'd sucked it up and hopefully, he'd proved to the team that he was more than just a whiny, needy pain in the butt. Granted that taking off to New York could be construed as running away but he had nowhere else to go and he needed somewhere to stay after he left hospital since he couldn't stay at his apartment anymore.

He'd headed to New York because Steve was working for six months at his father's law firm, filling in for someone on leave and it seemed like a perfect place to hide from Gibbs. Of course if Steve hadn't given up his apartment and stored his stuff at Tony's he could stayed at his place, problem solved but things were never that easy. Getting away had also allowed him to build up his defensive walls again so he didn't go all weak and cave into Gibbs.

How would he respect him if Tony capitulated like a little kid; that definitely wasn't the way to reassure his boss that he was still up to the role of senior field agent? That was a job which demanded that he not yield to Gibbs when the boss was acting over the top. Sure it'd almost killed him to prove he didn't need help but what doesn't kill you makes you stronger. His father was right about one thing, it didn't matter how much you were hurting, as long as you never let anyone know.

When Cate came in later that morning she stopped and did a double take before dropping her bag on her desk and coming over to say hello and ask how he was doing. He guessed she had been caught with her pants down so to speak, since he'd expected lots of snarky comments about him running of and ignoring Rule #3 but like Gibbs she never mentioned it. Actually, she looked tired and pretty frazzled if he was being brutally honest and he wondered if she was still upset about Suzzanne McNeil. It simply never occurred to him that she was looking rough because she'd been left alone for practically a month with Gibbs, or that he would be even more of a bastard than usual because Tony wasn't there

So, because he felt partial responsibility for her screw-up, he went into mother hen mode. Despite what Gibbs said, if she was still struggling to deal with that case, he wasn't going to stand by the sidelines and watch their newest probie beat herself up over it. She had to learn from it and move on or else she would end up making more mistakes and they could easily be fatal ones. It wouldn't be the first time; introspection was a fine thing but if you over-analysed every minute detail of your mistakes on cases, you ended up creating an inertia that was counter- productive. So Tony kept checking up on Cate, continuously monitoring her at her desk every five minutes and sans the usual jokes, teasing and movie references, he ended up making her downright antsy. Finally getting up and stalking over to his desk, she seemed to psych herself up as she took a deep breath.

"Tony?"

"Mm."

Cate looked pained. "I'm sorry."

Tony looked around, alarmed. "Shh Cate," he hissed at her, "You should know by now what Gibbs says about apologises." He really didn't want to piss Gibbs off, not since he was in such a benign mood.

"Shut up will you, Tony? I'm trying to apologise to you for not wanting you to stay at my place. It wasn't very nice of me." Cate admitted.

Tony shook his head. "No Catie, I don't blame you for not wanting me to stay. Lots of people think I'm a pain in the butt, not just you. You've got nothing to be sorry for."

"Darn it DiNozzo, will you let me apologise for heaven's sake."

"No Cate, I told you there was nothing to be sorry for. I'm the one who should be sorry for making you feel bad. Are you okay? You looked a bit frazzled. You do know it wasn't your fault about Suzzanne? None of us suspected she had a bomb."

"But you knew that she had her memory back, when we arrived at BFF." She pointed out, aggrieved. "And I wouldn't listen."

Tony smiled kindly, not realising that he was infuriating the team probie. "I might have suspected but I didn't know."

"But I didn't even think to suspect her, I believed everything she told me, hook line and sinker." Unspoken between them was the statement _and I'm a profiler._

Tony stared at her, concerned but at a loss to know how to make her feel better since he was trying very hard to adopt a new Tony DiNozzo persona and he wasn't sure how the new, improved Tony should act. He only knew that he shouldn't be like the old Tony.

"We all make mistakes, give yourself a break. It's a good thing to see the good in people, JUST not in our job so we have to suspect everyone, which kinda sucks." If he wasn't restricted to desk duty, he'd take her down and spar with her in the gym since she liked showing off her superior Secret Service protection skills but that wasn't an option. Searching around for an alternative form of distraction and solace, he received inspiration of sorts. He rifled through his desk drawer. "Do you want a cup of coffee? Here, have a Twinkie or a Hershey bar," he offered foisting them on Cate.

"Stop it DiNozzo," she raised her voice, going to elbow him in the gut and stopping herself with difficulty. "Are you trying to make me fat or break out in zits, giving me that crap because I swear I'll kick your butt, Tony? Just let me apologise, for crying out loud. Stop being an ass."

Tony smiled, pleased to see that Cate was sounding more like her usual self already although he made a mental note not to offer her Twinkies or candy bars again. He'd stock up on granola bars and sugar free carob just as soon as possible. And assure her that she could never be fat and had a glowing complexion. Mm, perhaps he could ask Paula Cassidy to give her some words of support since he knew that Cate was uncomfortable being vulnerable around male agents. He remembered how Chris had buddied up to him when he joined NCIS.

Gibbs didn't do warm and fuzzy and the rest of the agents either wrote him of as a show pony that wouldn't last three months or were convinced he'd used his family name and money to pull strings. As much as a spot on Gibbs team was coveted, it was also considered something of a poisoned chalice too but it didn't stop a lot of the jealousy that was directed at him when he rocked up from Baltimore. Just a simple cop was the consensus in the bull pen and Tony had immediately felt the chill, as his colleagues sent him to Coventry. Chris had showed him around the office, and given him insider Intel on living in D.C. and just simply offered a much needed and valued lifeline that helped him make it through the first difficult weeks in his new job.

Now he only needed to face Ducky and Abby and he didn't think that they would give him too hard a time. Ducky with give him the 'look' the one that was full of compassion and disappointment and he'd say, "Oh Anthony," and proceed to deliver a lecture on the need for him to take more care.

And Abby, well she hadn't been happy about his flight to New York but she had sent him a text, so he knew that they were still friends. Remembering the care packages full of soft foods like chocolate mousse and chocolate truffles that she'd organised to have delivered to him at the hospital and at Steve's apartment because of his sore jaw, he reciprocated by sending her a dozen black roses and an IOU for Caf-Pows. Pulling out his phone and scrolling through til he found the saved text she had sent the night he fled to New York, he read it again smiling:

I suck as BFF

Luv u 2bits

Come home pleeeeease?

OX 4eva

Dark Angel

They had exchanged a few emails and she'd sent copious texts and he'd talked to her once or twice, so he figured it was all good.


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: I don't own the NCIS characters but the LOLs Lil, Carla and Rae are all mine. Alas I am not benefiting financially from this story, it is purely for entertainment purposes.

Rating: T mainly to be safe for some bad language.

This story isn't beta'ed so please excuse my less than perfect punctuation.

A/N Once again thank-you to everyone for your response to the story. I continue to find lots of reviews and alerts in my inbox alerting me to new followers and people who have faved the story. So I know I said this was the final chapter but when I went to post it, it was 5000 words long and in keeping with the the rest of the chapters wordage, I have opted to split it. Sorry, don't hate me lol.

Thanks to Arress and Catsmeou for their suggestions with this and the second part of the chapter. I hope you enjoy :)

Left For Dead

Chapter 9

Gibbs had ordered Tony drive their dead petty officer's mother home, since Ducky had cautioned him not to let her drive as she was too distraught. Although DiNozzo was still on desk duties and would be for several more weeks, Gibbs knew that his normally active senior field agent was getting cabin fever, despite only being back for three days. Generally, when confined to desk duty, he became bored very quickly and a bored DiNozzo always meant trouble for the entire bull pen. Yet most disturbingly, there had been none of the boredom busting strategies they'd come to expect from a bored Tony.

Frankly, everyone was on edge, barely able to concentrate, expecting marathon monologues about obscure and popular movies and how they related to the most mundane of details. Then there was the teasing of Cate to the point of distraction until she snapped and lost her temper, except that Tony remained conspicuously silent, even when Cate gave him an opening on numerous occasions before she would give up in a huff. They expected him to pull his usual outrageous pranks involving the whole bull pen or to break into an eclectic barrage of songs that seemed to have been selected purely to be as annoying and kitsch as possible and to stick around in your head interminably. And yet, nothing!

Tony remained uncharacteristically quiet and restrained which should have been a relief to his colleagues, yet the whole floor was in a fluster trying to anticipate when Tony would unleash his … well Tony-ness as Abby called it. The suspense was excruciating and it had become so agonising that people couldn't concentrate and were complaining about Tony preventing them from being able to work effectively, which was ironic. So in the interests of NCIS productivity, Gibbs had bent the rules slightly and sent him off to play chauffeur, getting him out of the office and everyone's hair.

Of course that wasn't the only reason why Gibbs had wanted Tony out of the office. He wanted to have a team meeting about him and obviously didn't want his agent around while they were discussing him. Cate, Ducky, Abby and Gibbs had convened in Abby's lab and Ducky had had the foresight to send his assistant Gerald on a coffee run and the medical examiner had raided his supply of chocolate digestives since he'd had a premonition this wasn't going to be a warm and fuzzy get-together. A little chocolate to increase serotonin levels never went astray in these circumstances, he informed Gibbs gravely.

Cate typically wasn't backward about coming forward when it came to team meetings and couldn't see what everyone was making such a fuss about. "Personally, I don't see a problem, Gibbs. I like not having him make chauvinist remarks every five seconds or trying to find out what I did the night before last and no constant harping on about his dumb movies. Oww Abby, what was that for?" She glared at her gal pal, rubbing her arm where Abby had punched her.

"That was for Tony, Cate! I want him back, not this pod person who returned from New York. He's decided that he needs to reinvent himself again after we rejected him 'cause he thinks he isn't good enough for us. And I've apologised to him til I'm blue in the face but he just smiles at me and tell me I didn't do anything wrong. Do something, Gibbs. Fix Tony, please!" Abby pouted, stamping her foot as Gibbs rolled his eyes and grimaced.

"Like what Abbs? I've tried, you've tried, Ducky's talked him into a coma… sorry Duck," the ME smiled to show he hadn't taken offense. "But when I tried to explain to him, he wouldn't listen. Just kept fobbing me off, saying I shouldn't feel guilty…that his parents didn't want him around, sent his off to boarding school and even they asked him to leave, so he didn't blame his co-workers. Just kept telling me he was fine. Made me feel like crap," Gibbs admitted scowling.

"Look people, Tony's just moping. I tried to apologise but he was too childish to accept it. He'll get over it, stop pandering to him. You're reinforcing his juvenile behaviour by making a mountain out of a molehill. If we ignore him he'll come around, trust me. I know what I'm talking about, I've got two brothers." Cate preached obviously feeling her psychological insights qualified her to lecture them. "Oww… will you stop punching me, Abby! You're supposed to be my friend."

"Yeah well I never realised how judgemental you were, Cate. And Tony's NOT sulking. He really has managed to convinced himself that our meanness is due to his failings, ergo we having nothing to apologise for. That's why he won't accept it. Haven't you notice that he is always quick to take to the blame for stuff? Call yourself a profiler."

Gibbs looked at the usually ebullient Dr Mallard. "You haven't said anything yet, Duck. How can we fix this?"

Ducky looked at the others solemnly. "Honestly, Jethro I find myself at a loss. I don't think Anthony has ever felt like he was good enough to earn his parents unconditional love. That's probably why he feels like he needs his masks when he's around people, that we won't find the real Anthony enough. We confirmed his fears when we rejected him or made him feel unwelcome or forgot him. Semantics," he said, waving away their objections.

"It doesn't matter if we meant to or that we are sorry. What matters is our friend's perception, how he sees himself and how he perceives the behaviour of his friends. He's been rejected by the people who are supposed to love him; they told him his whole childhood that it was because he was lacking. So why shouldn't he blame himself for our behaviour too?" Ducky looked across at Cate.

"As our resident profiler, Caitlyn, perhaps you could help me understand about automatic thoughts?"

Cate frowned in concentration, "Sure Ducky. Well… we have hundreds of thoughts that occur constantly as we make sense of our world. Automatic thoughts occur in the limbic system in the brain and it controls immediate responses so it can make rapid assessments and snap judgements when needed. When it is in overdrive though, it can lead to anxiety, depression and sleep disturbances."

She paused and saw that everyone was listening closely, not sure where the conversation was going. She knew how they felt. Focusing again on Ducky's question, she continued. "Some automatic thoughts can lead to cognitive distortions when they are based on deeply ingrained core beliefs, often developed at an early age. Automatic thoughts that are based on faulty reasoning can be highly destructive since by their very nature, they are automatic so the person isn't aware of them." She paused and nibbled one of Ducky's chocolate biscuits as he called cookies.

"Um… there are a number of different types of automatic thoughts: Overgeneralisation which is pretty self- explanatory, Labelling and Self-Labelling where you label a group or in the case of Self Labelling, label yourself as mean or stupid or worthless, Mind Reading where you think you know what others are thinking about you, usually negative stuff but wrong, Personalising where you take the blame or else you blame others for outcomes outside your control, Shoulding where you're constantly focus on what you should be doing instead of focusing on what you are doing, at least I think that Shoulding is an automatic thought, Ducky. I can do some research for you if you like?"

Ducky smiled at Cate. "Thank-you my dear; I would be most grateful. He turned and regarded Gibbs, before addressing them all seriously, "You wanted to know how we fix this? I'm not sure if we can since we didn't cause it, although we were just starting to break through his defences. We had begun to earn his trust so that he could show us a little of who the true Anthony really is. Even if it wasn't our intention, we have proved to him that his deepest fears were correct and that he still doesn't make the grade. So while we weren't the cause, we definitely reinforced his belief and exacerbated it."

The blue eyes that were usually gentle now looked world-weary, and old; Ducky glancing at his colleagues could see his own guilt mirrored in their eyes. He sighed before continuing, sharing his thoughts with the young ones.

"And attitudes and beliefs formed in childhood are not easily changed, I fear. This isn't some television program where the bad guys are always caught and mistakes can simply be fixed because we wish it was so and we regret our errors. We can't tie everything up into a neat little solve, resolved in a forty four minute window and by the next episode all is forgotten." It was Ducky's chief criticism of the idiot box and the way it trivialised real problems and portrayed banal and simplistic solutions that miraculously fixed everything, especially on television dramas. "Real life means despite the best of intentions, that we often fall on our buttocks trying to fix things and then we pick ourselves up again and try again."

"It means perseverance and not giving up on him or letting him push us away." He looked at the team who were nodding in agreement and he was hopeful that they would stay the course since it would be a marathon that they must run, not a hundred yard dash. "All I can counsel is that we mustn't force him either. If we do that, he will likely see our concern as pity, not friendship or love and he will likely take off again and this time he might not come back."

Once Ducky had finished, they all contemplated what he said, feeling overwhelmed at the enormity of it all, guilty about the damage they'd unwittingly wrought and angry that parents had such power to inflict absolute devastation upon a powerless child.

Gibbs finally looked at his wristwatch and sighed, "Well… I guess we better get back to work. DiNozzo should be back soon and it won't help our case if he thinks we're talking about him behind his back. Last thing we need. We have to fix this, you're all on notice. That damn interfering Carla woman has got a Hispanic intelligence network to rival the CIA, I swear. She somehow managed to find out where I live and she turns up to lecture me about DiNozzo without fail, as soon as I settle down with my boat."

He didn't add that she presumed to lecture him sanctimoniously about his _self-indulgent wallowing in grief_ and _how he was dishonouring his loved ones and pickling his brain_. He didn't know how she'd found out his secret but she made him feel like he was back at grade school and he had hated it. The problem was that he was powerless to stop her, he was a match for most people but she somehow had his measure and her stare was enough for him to turn into a gibbering idiot.

Cate snorted sarcastically. "Well how would you like to have Lil The Rottweiler on your case, Gibbs? She decided to rat me out to my Parish Priest and he counselled me about my uncharitable behaviour and somehow I found myself in the confessional and next thing I knew, I was given penance. My knees have RSI from kneeling and scrapping off all the chewing gum that little heathens have stuck on the underneath of the pews. How the heck did she find out where I go to church, anyway?"

Abby smirked. "So that explains why you are so much more snarly that usual, Cate. I thought it was because Lil whacked you over the head with her handbag when you went to question her, after Tony took off from the hospital?"

"No, Abby that happened when Gibbs made me go back later on and tell them all that Tony was back in hospital in New York. It sucks being the probie and that bag was heavy, Abby. I think she carries a brick around inside. I'll bet that DiNozzo gave her the idea." Cate protested; her face puckered up indignation.

Abby bounced up and down excitedly. "Oh yeah Cate, you're right. That sounds like a totally Tony thing to do. He probably gives them all self-defence classes down at the Y, too

Cate snorted, muttering darkly about DiNozzo needing a whack over the head and Abby shot her a glower.

"Don't you think it's a bit juvenile to be displacing your anger on Tony, though? And it's not like you're the only one the LOLs have turned their considerable ire onto, Catie. Stop being a baby and suck it up," she advised unsympathetically.

"Whadda they do to you, Abbs?" Gibbs enquired curiously.

"Nothing I didn't deserve, Bossman," she assured him calmly. Turns out that Rae and Sister Rosita are like best buds suddenly, can you believe the six degrees of separation vibe and she like, might have mentioned what happened to Tony. Think Rae went to nursery school with her or something and now the nuns are sooo disappointed in me. They keep give me these great big cow eyes; it's awful."

"They give you penance too Abby?"

"Nu uh, I'm not practising Cate. Actually, I'm not even Catholic but they told me I could make an act of contrition if I was really repentant, so I benched me from the bowling team for a month. But I still have to go and support the team, and they all look at me like I've so let them down." She wiped a lone tear from her pale green eyes and looked at the team. "I just feel really horrible when Tony smiles and gives me a hug and says I haven't done anything to apologise for so he doesn't need to forgive me. I think that is a much worse punishment, by far." Abby looked down, her bottom lip quivering frenziedly and no one spoke for a while.

Finally, Cate broke the silence. "What did the LOLs do to you Duck?"

Dr Mallard looked at the inquisitive trio and smiled gently. "They didn't do anything, Caitlyn. I invited the lovely LOLS as you call them out to Reston House to have high tea with Mother and humbly admitted that my behaviour as a friend and colleague was appalling and that my performance as young Anthony's physician was also inexcusable and I vowed to do better in future. Indeed we have joined forces to try and ensure that it doesn't happen again."

Ducky never noticed the aggrieved looks he received from Cate, Abby and especially Gibbs, who was positively scowling at the thought Ducky had managed to charm his nemesis, while he was still being tortured by her. Somehow, she'd adopted him as her personal program.

Flashback

_Gibbs sank down on the sawhorse, battered by years of use in his boat making endeavours and he reached for the bourbon bottle. He picked up the dusty Mason jar, upending it a few times to chase away the dust, before pouring a healthy slug. As he took a sip, he thought about his absent senior field agent and if he would come back. Abby had received a text from him, saying he was staying with a frat brother so at least Gibbs knew he was getting better. Taking another sip, he heard someone walking through the house and approaching the door to the basement confidently, so he figured it was someone that had been there before. _

_Retrieving his gun because it was dangerous to assume, he trained it on the door and waited as an elderly tiny figure appeared at the top of the stairs. Damn it, it was that busybody Carla Santiago. What the devil did she want and how did she find out where he lived. Ignoring his gun she proceeded down the stairs and planted herself in front of him. Although he really wanted to tell her to get out, he inexplicably seemed to have lost his tongue_

_Eyeing the bottle of Jack Daniels on the bench and the dirty jar, she shook her head in distaste. _

_"I wonder what your wife would say, if she could see you now, Leroy. Do you think she would see this wallowing in self-pity as proof of your abiding love for your family? I doubt it; I think she would like to kick your culo for being a coward."_

_Gibbs opened his mouth to tell her to get to the hell out of his house and butt out, to mind her own god-damned business, nobody asked for her opinion and she didn't know what she was talking about but when he tried to speak, nothing come out bar a pathetic gurgle. AND she called him Leroy and no one called him that and lived. Yet, here she was a ninety pound, dripping wet, elderly woman who barely reached up to his armpits when she was holding herself tall and she was matching him glare for glare and then the unbelievable happened. Unable to face the pain, suffering, anger and pity in her eyes, HE broke eye contact._

_"You think you are the first person to lose your family, Leroy? You think that I don't know what I'm talking about? I can see it in your eyes. Let me tell you, I have lost siblings and a parent to malnutrition and preventable diseases due to not having medical assistance, I have lost a child due to gangland violence and evil and I have seen my grand- daughter die because of a drug overdose, so I know about grief and loss, young Leroy." _

_Again he opened his mouth to tell her it was different, Shannon and Kelly were special, they were his life and he wasn't there to protect them, to do his job. He let them down and he deserved to suffer because of it but for some reason, the feared interrogator of NCIS could only manage a, "I… I… I…you…you," before he gave up on the attempt to form a coherent response, feeling like an awkward schoolboy again. Functional mute… oh yeah this woman left him speechless!_

_Unfortunately, it seemed that Carla hadn't finished with him yet. "Would your family feel guilty seeing you shut yourself up in the basement for the rest of your life, punishing yourself because you survived and they didn't? Ask yourself this Leroy, if you had died on active service, would you want your wife to spend the rest of her life in pain, punishing herself as some misguided proof of how much you meant to her or to pickle her liver in the demon drink? Wouldn't you want her to mourn you and then in time, find happiness again? It's time to move on; help others if you won't find happiness for your own sake and theirs… but just lose that chip on your shoulder. You are a MARINE not a coward."_

_She gave him that damned look again that robbed him of his words even though they were being shouted out loud, clear and very ugly in his head and turned and walked up the stairs. When she reached the top, she turned and fixed him with that look, daring him to look away. "I enjoyed our chat, Leroy. We'll talk again," and he wasn't sure if it was threat or promise but Gibbs soon discovered she was true to her word._

End of Flashback

Gibbs wondered if he could use Ducky's strategy and simply invite the Three Witches to his place for a cookout and confess his deficiencies and promise to turn over a new leaf? It would be a relief to be able to have a drink without worrying that his own personal busybody was going to turn up and have a chat with him, damn her.


	10. Chapter 10

Disclaimer: I don't own the NCIS characters but the LOLs Lil, Carla and Rae are all mine. Alas I am not benefiting financially from this story, it is purely for entertainment purposes.

Rating: T mainly to be safe for some bad language.

This story isn't beta'ed so please excuse my less than perfect to people who have let me know about faux pas, much appreciated.

A/N Once again thank-you to everyone for your response to the story with reviews, alerts and making it a favourite. Meilea4544 to answer your question, Gibbs calling the LOLs the Three Witches refers to characters of in the William Shakespeare play Macbeth and wasn't meant to be a compliment. Also for the reviewer who wanted to know, Tony and the LOLs have all moved back to their apartments too. Hopefully everyone is getting alerts again since FF wasn't sending any out for a while. I am still missing some from reviews and other writer's stories so I hope everything is back to normal now. Just a spoiler, I have tag coming up in the Angel Cate series in the near future that deals with "that scene" in Boxed In from Probationary Guardian Angel Cate's pov. I hope to post it to coincide with the 1st year anniversary of my first story I'm Better Than That which was also a Boxed In tag.

Well finally...this is the final installment of this story and I've really enjoyed writing and bringing it to you. Thanks to Arress and Catsmeou for their suggestions with this chapter. I hope you've enjoyed this :)

Left For Dead

Chapter 10

As Ducky returned to Autopsy, he admitted to himself that he hadn't been completely forthcoming with his friends. Truth be told, he had given the delightful LOLs _as they had been universally christened by everyone at NCIS, although he preferred to think of them as Anthony's Grandmothers,_ his sincere mea culpa. That much was definitely true. He had invited them home to meet his mother and it did not escape his attention that it was hypocritical not to mention ironic that he had worked with Anthony for over two years and yet he barely knew these redoubtable ladies before inviting them to his domicile. Yet his intentions were not confined to saving his mature posterior from a whooping. After having a good hard look at himself and his behaviour, he realised that his mother's illness had been making him rather insular.

Sadly, Alzheimer's and dementia did that to the family and carer-givers of those individuals who have to live with the disease. Outsiders often seemed to see it as transmittable, something like how cancer used to be whispered about a century before, as if there was a stigma to having it and it could be caught just by being around someone diagnosed with it. Ducky understood it had been the fear of death and the fact that there was no cure but for many people, dementia still evoked a similar primordial avoidance response in people towards the one's afflicted and even their loved ones.

Ducky had experienced it personally, watched Victoria's friends and his own, drift away with weak excuses about busy schedules or when pushed, how they couldn't stand to watch his formidable mother fall apart before their eyes. It had caused Ducky to shut himself, well both of them off, socially. Oh certainly, Reston house bustled with people coming and going, but they were always there in a professional capacity, his mother's nurse companions, doctors, he'd even organised for podiatrists, physical and occupational therapists to do home visits, too. Since reading about the benefits of music therapy, he was even investigating hiring a music therapist but he found it easier for them to come to the house. Less stressful to Victoria and definitely far less embarrassing to her son to have health care workers do home visits and he could afford to pay extra.

But in light of the debacle with young Anthony, he had taken a good hard look at himself and his home life and realised that he shouldn't be so quick to assume that his work colleagues would shun him because of his mother's life-limiting illness. He also really needed to find some people for his mother to socialise with, even if it might be difficult to find the right people. Perhaps looking for new friends who didn't know his mother before, who might be more accepting and less likely to judge her may make for more satisfying companions than the so-called stalwart friends of a lifetime. So he had decided to invite the Grandmothers and give them a proper apology and explanation – a warts and all outline his deficiencies. He suspected that even though his mother was not the woman she once was, she would like the LOLs as much as he did. He admired their pluck and they were obviously women of substance, since they saw the inherent goodliness in their very special agent.

Even apart from all of those incentives, Ducky had another ulterior motive. As the team had observed rather bitterly, the women had considerable resources and had managed to assemble some very focused intell on their targets to extract their own form of retribution for Tony. Gibbs thought that Carla was using her ties to the Hispanic community and perhaps she was, since Gibbs gut was all knowing but Ducky had a strong feeling that their snitch might be someone much closer to home. Personally, he had Christopher Pacci pegged as their stool pigeon since he was a supporter of Tony's; had been since Gibbs recruited him after running into him, literally, in Baltimore. Ducky knew though, that if Pacci had been tattling on his colleagues to the LOLs, he was definitely way too much of a professional to have left any incriminating evidence behind.

There was another candidate for the role and ordinarily he would discount him unequivocally but his intuition was telling him that it was an inside job. Director Morrow was apparently taking a rather hands on approach to the situation. He knew that Thomas also had a soft spot for Gibbs' senior field agent, too. To his surprise; somewhere along the way, the good director had made the acquaintance of Anthony's Grandmothers, presumably through Christopher who seemed to get on with them like a house on fire. So, he wouldn't necessarily rule out their highly esteemed leader as the source of the leak, even if like Pacci he could never prove it. Perhaps he might be able to wheedle it out of Thomas with a wee dram of whiskey and a touch of the Scottish brogue, though.

Whatever the truth about how the formidable trio gathered their data, he noticed that they managed to garner loyalty and friendship where ever they went…well apart from Cate and Gibbs, Abby seemed not to have borne them a grudge and while they were scarily fierce in defence of Anthony, Ducky thought that they had an even more valuable and attractive quality. They obviously loved Anthony to bits and he thought that it was probably a unique experience for the young agent. One that would be invaluable in trying to help rebuilt his trust and help start the healing process. He desperately wanted to enlist Lillian, Carla and Raelene into what he knew was a daunting undertaking and recognised he needed to befriend them.

The doctor pulled out a crumple sheet of paper as he entered Autopsy. It had been screwed up at some point and since he had started carrying it around in his pocket and taking it out to reread and contemplate its implications, it had become considerably more dog eared and crinkled. Ducky hadn't mentioned its existence to anyone, not Gibbs not even Anthony but he was greatly disturbed by what it contained. After Anthony had landed in hospital playing Sir Galahad to the young waif on the street, Ducky had finally come back to NCIS and sat at the young agent's desk, meditating as he had seen it's young occupant do on many an occasion. There he sat; trying to figure out just how they'd managed to make such a dog's breakfast of it all and what to do about it.

Following his instinct, something compelled him to look at the trash can beside Anthony's desk and he saw a balled up piece of paper on the top of the pile. Not really sure what made him go trawling through the young agent's trash, he nevertheless snatched up that paper. Perhaps it was his Guardian Angel directing him to find it but whether it was fate, kismet, spirit guides or dumb luck, he was just pleased that he found it because it enabled him to realise the enormity of the task that they faced. He hadn't been exaggerating down in Abigail's Lab. It was a monumental task they faced, not made easier by their stupid and uncaring behaviour that simply confirmed one of Anthony's innermost fears. Smoothing out the sheet of paper again, he stared at it for the hundredth time, hoping perhaps to find some inspiration or frankly, he'd accept some divine intervention very gladly.

In his distinctive script, Anthony had written

**_Very Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo is fine. Yeah right!_**

**_F: fucked up beyond all recognition, full of shit, fool, feeble_**

**_I: irritating, idiot, infuriating, indolent_**

**_N: Nuisance, nauseating, nasty, non-essential_**

**_E: exasperating,extrinsic, effete, erroneous _**

Even though Ducky had read this self-appraisal many times before, each time he reread it, the pain, anger, and self-loathing leapt up of the page and punched him right in the heart. This was the internal dialogue that Anthony had developed, undoubtedly composed as his personality, mind and spirit were being shaped and moulded as a child by his contemptible caregivers: alcoholic father, alcoholic mother and who knew about the step- mothers. Not to mention all the private tutors, servants who were forced to care for the boy while still completing their _real_ work, school masters and mistresses who never reported the entrenched abuse and neglect.

He really didn't know if the abuse was only emotional or not though, there were some huge red flags waving but whether there was or not, the damage done to a vulnerable young, not yet formed psyche was extensive. Frankly, the fact that Anthony was such a highly functioning, caring and brilliant investigator was shocking, as was the fact that he not only didn't use his past as an excuse but hid his upbringing from them all. Ducky was humbled and ashamed each time he read the note. Humbled to know such a complex and wounded young man that manage to hide so much of his own pain and still want to make the world a better place for others. Ashamed because as was frequently the case with the more horrific cases that passed through his domain, he felt ashamed to belong to the same species as someone who could knowingly inflict such hurt and suffering upon another individual. What other species could visit so much harm upon the fruit of their loins?

No, he had definitely not exaggerated the enormity of the task. Cursing the day that the alcoholic excuse for a father that was Anthony DiNozzo Senior had been born, he was reminded of the Biblical passage from Exodus 20:5 _You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me. _Even though Ducky wasn't exactly a religious man, it did seem rather apt.

Their dear boy was certainly paying for the sins of his father. Hopefully with the people that had assembled to fight the good fight for him, they might be able to bring an end to that quittance. Maybe someday they might even be able to grant him a modicum of recompense. No one deserved it more.


End file.
